Page 60 - Indian, Himalayan and Tibetan Art March 2018

This radiant image in gem-set gilt copper depicts the Buddha The rectangular undecorated panel at the back of the throne
Shakyamuni with his hands in the gesture of turning the indicates how the statue was placed in a larger temple setting:
Buddhist Wheel of Law and expounding the dharma. The lions where now there is a hole, a sturdy tang once protruded which
in the throne are a symbol of the Buddha’s Shakya clan, and would have been used to locate and secure the statue in its
an ancient Indian emblem of royalty and power. Scrolling vine designated position, cf. the statues of Densatil that are # xed
around the base represents the branches and tendrils of the in position in this manner, see Olaf Czaja and Adriana Proser,
lotus on which the Buddha is seated, the % ower symbolising eds, Golden Visions of Densatil, New York, 2014, p. 46-7.
purity and renunciation.
Compare the scrolling vine throne, the lotus petal design, the
The sculpture epitomises the qualities of Newar master subtle inset jewellery and the clean and elegant sculptural line
artists working for Tibetan patrons in the fourteenth century. of a fourteenth century gilt copper alloy Amoghasiddhi in the
Nepalese sculptural traditions are seen in the simple yet Berti Aschmann Collection at the Museum Rietberg, that was
sensuously modeled, and perfectly proportioned # gure of included in the 2014 exhibition “Golden Visions of Densatil: A
Buddha, the subtle colour of the expertly inset gem decoration Tibetan Buddhist Monastery” at Asia Society Museum, ibid.,
on the throne cloth below and the rich hue of the mercury cat. no. 31: compare also the scrolling vine motif on the lotus
gilding. The pedestal design re% ects Tibetan preference for pedestals of two Vajravarahi gilt bronzes from Densatil, ibid.,
sculptural embellishment in the exuberance of the scrolling cat. nos. 42-3. Compare also a fourteenth century gilt copper
vine motif, compare a central Tibetan seated gem-set gilt alloy Vajrasattva in the Drigung Thil monastery collection, with
copper alloy # gure of Manjushri with scrolling vine throne, see similar scrolling vine motif on the pedestal and subtle inset
Pratapaditya Pal, Art of the Himalayas, New York, 1991, p. 125, jewellery, see Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in
cat. no. 65, where Pal notes that such % oral design along the Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, Vol. II, p. 1041, pl. 260.
bottom of the lotus base is commonly seen on Tibetan painting
of the period but almost never on Nepalese bronzes.

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