Page 136 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

VARIOUS PROPERTIES
1413
A VERY RARE GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF JAMBHALA
YONGLE SIX-CHARACTER MARK INSCRIBED IN A LINE AND OF THE
PERIOD (1403-1424)
The wealth deity sits in lalitasana on a lotus base, his right foot resting
on a conch shell, holding a fruit in his right hand and a mongoose in
his left. He wears a dhoti secured at the waist with a beaded belt, and
is adorned with various jewelry and wrapped with snakes. The wide
face, with broad nose and bulging eyes, is fanked by large earrings
and surmounted by a foliate crown. The base is sealed and incised
with a double-vajra.
8º in. (21 cm.) high
$600,000-800,000
PROVENANCE
Property of Mr. & Mrs. Carter F. Burckhardt, Bremerton, Washington,
acquired in Shanghai, 1910-1940.
Thence by descent within the family.
The present rotund fgure depicts the Buddhist wealth deity, Jambhala.
Often confused with the Hindu god Kubera or the Buddhist Guardian King,
Vaishravana, Jambhala’s unusual appearance descends from ancient Indian
yaksha fgures. In visual iconography, the Hindu god Kubera, also a wealth
deity, and Jambhala are essentially identical, while Vaishravana can be
easily distinguished by the presence of armor, among other things. In many
representations of Kubera, Vaishravana, and Jambhala (although not in the
case of the present fgure) the mongoose that the deity clutches spews
jewels, exemplifying the wealth-granting powers of all three deities.
Within the corpus of known early Ming gilt-bronzes, Jambhala is exceedingly
rare, although images of Vaishravana riding a lion are known. The present
work exhibits all of the hallmark traditions of contemporary Nepalese
sculpture, including elegant, robust fgural proportions and excellent casting
and gilding technique. The Nepalese style had been introduced to China
in the Yuan dynasty when the Nepalese master artisan, Aniko (also spelled
Araniko or Anige) was installed as the head artist of the imperial workshops
in Beijing. Major extant sites in China exhibiting the Nepalese style include
the Juyong Gate or Cloud Platform outside Beijing and the stone carvings at
Feilaifeng in Hangzhou, both dated to the Yuan. See, in particular, a seated
fgure of Jambhala, iconographically and stylistically similar to the present
bronze, carved from the limestone of Feilaifeng and illustrated by Ann
Paludan in Chinese Sculpture: A Great Tradition, Chicago, 2006, p. 407, fg.
269.
(mark)
134
Following the tumultuous transition from the Yuan dynasty to the Ming in
1368, the Yongle Emperor followed in the tradition of his Yuan predecessors
by inviting important Tibetan Buddhist dignitaries to his court. In 1406, the
Yongle Emperor invited Deshin Shekpa, the Fifth Karmapa and head of the
Karma Kagyu sect to Nanjing, where he spent two years as a spiritual advisor
to the Emperor. Similarly, he requested Tsongkhapa, head of the reformist
Gelug sect, to visit in both 1408 and 1413; while he declined to make the
trip himself, Tsongkhapa sent his disciple, Shakya Yeshe, who remained
in the capital for ten years. The result of this fruitful relationship was the
resumption of imperially-sponsored Buddhist activities in China. Lavish gifts
were exchanged between the visiting dignitaries and the Emperor, including
imperially-produced gilt-bronzes. Although few other Yongle-inscribed
gilt-bronze images of Jambhala are known, compare the present fgure to a
fgure of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the collection of the Potala and illustrated
by U. von Schroeder in Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, vol. II, Hong Kong, 2001,
p. 1243, XX-8. Both share the same rotund proportions and full face with
bulging eyes, as well as exhibit identical treatment of the base and jewelry,
in particular the naga tied around the belly. See, also, a small and more
crudely-cast fgure of Jambhala, stylistically dated to the early Ming dynasty,
illustrated by R. Bigler, Art and Faith at the Crossroads, Zurich, 2013, p. 92,
no. 35.
In order to fulfll their religious function, Buddhist images had to conform
to the orthodox and complex iconography of Tibetan Buddhism, with its
hundreds of deities. To ensure compliance with such strict regulations,
Chinese artisans consulted iconographic manuals, known in Tibetan
as kanjur. The Yongle Emperor himself ordered the production of an
Imperial kanjur, which was completed in 1410, and was based of an earlier
14th-century set of wood blocks from the great printing center of Narthang,
in Tibet. Certain parts of the Yongle kanjur survived into the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911), were incorporated into a kanjur commissioned by the Kangxi
Emperor in the late 17th century, and were thus preserved to the present
day. One of the surviving prints, illustrated by von Schroeder in Buddhist
Sculptures in Tibet, vol. II, p. 1240, fg. XX-5 depicts the deity Chaturbhuja
Mahakala, and correlates very closely both stylistically and iconographically
to the aforementioned gilt-bronze fgure of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the
Potala. It is clear the artist of the present bronze closely followed the rubrics
of the Yongle kanjur, although a print depicting the deity, Jambhala, is not
known at this time.
明永樂 鎏金銅黃財神坐像 《大明永樂年施》六字楷書刻款
(reverse)