Page 122 - Bonhams Presencer Buddhist Art Collection Oct. 2 2018

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A GILT COPPER FIGURE OF VAJRAVARAHI
NEPAL, 16TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61659
17.4 cm (6 7/8 in.) high

HK$350,000 - 450,000

尼泊爾 十六世紀 銅鎏金金剛亥母像

One of the most popular female yidam found in all schools of Tibetan
Buddhism, Vajravarahi is a form of Vajrayogini, the principal female
deity of the Chakrasamvara Cycle of Tantras. She is the consort of the
great transformative deity Samvara, and is also worshiped in her own
right as a protector of the tantra’s potent secrets. She is also the only
female deity in Tibet to reincarnate on earth, serving as the abbot of
Samding monastery, near Lhasa.

The present bronze depicts a popular representation of Vajravarahi,
with a sow’s (varahi) head projecting from the right side of her face.
Cast with a robust and shapely body, Vajravarahi centers her weight
effortlessly on flexed toes, achieving an accomplished dancer’s pose.
She holds a kartrika knife in her raised right hand, and a skull cup in
her left, while wearing a garland of freshly severed heads. The bronze
triumphs in Vajravarahi’s balance of ferocity and elegance.

Evident in her sensuous body, her facial type, and jewelry, this work
was done by the hand of a Newari master. The bronze compares
favourably to a Nepalese gilt bronze figure of Vajravarahi in the British
Museum, published in von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong
Kong, 1981, pp.378-9, no.101C.

Provenance
Oriental Antiquities, London, 1969

120 | BONHAMS