Page 64 - 2020 September 23 Himalyan and Southeast Asian Works of Art Bonhams

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A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF TARA
SCHOOL OF SONAM GYALTSEN, CENTRAL TIBET, 15TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.16824
7 1/2 in. (19.2 cm) high

$40,000 - 60,000

索南堅贊風格 藏中 十五世紀 銅鎏金度母像

This delightful gilded sculpture of Tara depicts the peaceful bodhisattva with plump, well-
defined fingers and toes, and her left hand sporting a turquoise-inset ring. Attesting to the
sculpture’s quality of casting, even the back is sumptuously modelled with carefully arranged
tresses that loop and knot all the way down Tara’s shoulders. Jeweled pendants of inset
turquoise hang across her chest, back, and girdle.

The sculpture’s sensitive and fluid modelling follow the tenets of Sonam Gyaltsen’s workshop,
who was a master artist active in Shigaste in the second quarter of the 15th century. Hallmarks
of Sonam Gyaltsen’s artistic tradition include the figure’s sensuous physique, the delightfully
sinuous lotus stems, and the prominent fringe of curls beneath Tara’s crown. The shape and
execution of Tara’s regalia are also characteristic of Sonam Gyaltsen’s style, consisting of
five-lobed, pointed leaves inset with turquoise repeating throughout her crown, armbands,
bracelets, and on the tassel before her ankles. However, suggesting this bronze is from the
workshop and not the hand of Sonam Gylatsen are the slightly heavier treatment of the jewelry
and the engraved patterns achieved by a different technique than what is quintessential for
bronzes attributed to the master himself (cf. Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2018, lots 3033 &
3034). A good contemporaneous point of comparison for the bronze is a Tara which exhibits
much of the same formal elements of the broad 15th-century style that Sonam Gyaltsen
worked in, but are executed differently, as seen in the comparison’s more attenuated waist,
heavier girdle, and different lotus petals (Grewenig & Rist (eds.), Buddha: 2000 Years of
Buddhist Art, Völklingen, 2016, pp.470-1, no.209).

Provenance
Ex-Belgian Private Collection, 2018

62 | BONHAMS