Page 185 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

The iconography relates to Shakyamuni Buddha’s first that revolutionised the dating of Kashmir sculpture is a
sermon after his enlightenment given at Mrigadava, the standing Buddha with similar robe style, physiognomic
deer park at Sarnath, where he set in motion the Wheel of details and pedestal to the one in Beijing, and datable both
Dharma: the episode is personified in the dharmachakra by palaeography and reference in the inscription to the
hand gestures. This iconographic representation, together founder of the Karkota dynasty Durlabhavardhana (r. ca.
with the standing Buddha image where the right hand is 600-636) see Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in
held in a gesture of reassurance, abhayamudra, are the Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, vol. 1, pp. 126-29, pls 28A-D.
two most popular forms of Buddha found in early Kashmir For other examples of prototypes to the current sculpture,
art. Works such as this made their way to Tibet upon the see a 7th–8th century Kashmir figure of Buddha with similar
demise of Buddhism in Kashmir and were highly prized: the iconography from the Qing court collection, now preserved
11th century royal monk Nagaraja had a large collection of in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Classics of the
Kashmir bronzes as well as locally made western Tibetan Forbidden City. Tibetan Buddhist Sculptures, op.cit., 2012,
works.
no. 53; one in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, originally
Kashmiri sculptures of this type were always thought to date in the collection of Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck, M.69.13.5,
from the 9th century. However, the discovery within the last illustrated online; and a third without the elaborate openwork
twenty years of an important inscribed Kashmir bronze in a base, formerly in the collection of Professor Samuel
Tibetan monastery collection has prompted a re-evaluation Eilenberg and Simon Digby, sold in these rooms, 7th October
of Kashmir sculpture that has allowed rare images of this 2015, lot 3101.
form to be re-dated to the 7th century. The inscribed bronze