Page 62 - 2020 September 23 Himalyan and Southeast Asian Works of Art Bonhams

Being so complex, only the best artists were fit to undertake the challenge of casting
Chakrasamvara. The task most often fell to Newari master craftsmen from Nepal who produced
such sculptures for domestic and Tibetan worship. The stylistic preferences of each audience
are somewhat slight. But, while many contemporaneous Tibetan examples emphasize the
ferociousness of Chakrasamvara’s facial expressions, here instead, a benign intimacy is shared
between the deities gazing into each other’s eyes. The sentiment betrays a preference in
Nepal for showing divine couples in harmony, as representatives of ideal matrimony. Compare,
for example, a Tibetan Hevajra and Chakrasamvara published in von Schroeder, Buddhist
Sculptures in Tibet, Vol.II, Hong Kong, 2003, pp.1058 & 1061, nos.269A-B & 270B-C) with
a Nepalese Kalachakra and Chakrasamvara published in Essen & Thingo, Die Gotter des
Himlaya, Munich, 1989, p.147, no.II-318; and Huntington & Bangdel, Circle of Bliss, Columbus,
2003, pp.270-1, no.72, respectively. Another Nepalese characteristic of the bronze is the
base’s relatively thin and sharp-petaled double-lotus band. This is replicated on a very closely
related Two-armed Chakrasamvara in the British Museum (1921,0219.1), almost certainly from
the same workshop as the present bronze.

The sculpture survives from a refined artistic period in the Himalayas and is near-complete with
its base and various implements present, missing only the elephant skin which would have
been a thin sheet of metal drawn across Samvara’s back (and is commonly lost). Its absence,
however, has the fortuitous effect of giving full view of the convincing modeling and balance of
Samvara’s limbs. The base is bound by a modern red ‘protection cord’ which was added to the
bronze when it was reconsecrated by monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery while under the
present owner’s care.

Provenance
Henri and Dolores Kamer, New York
Private Collection, USA, acquired from the above in the early 1990s

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