Page 30 - Bonhams, Images of Devotion, April 21 2021

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A BRASS STUPA
GREATER KASHMIR, 9TH/10TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.16981
21 cm (8 1/4 in.) high

HKD160,000 - 180,000
克什米爾 九/十世紀 銅質佛塔

This is an excellent example of the long and slender ‘tower stupa’
that was popular in the region of Greater Kashmir around the 4th to
12th centuries. Its form is probably inspired by the Kanishka Stupa
monument established under the Kushan dynasty during the 2nd-3rd
century and rebuilt in the 4th century into a 400-foot tall structure
(according to modern estimates). The present model’s tall chattra spire
supported by a tapered harmika and a small dome, compares closely
to a pair of miniature stupas flanking a central figure of Crowned
Shakyamuni in an inscribed 8th-century Kashmiri shrine now in the
Asia Society Museum, New York (Linrothe, Collecting Paradise, New
York, 2014, pp.60-1, fig.1.28). Its distinctive ‘batwing’ lotus petals
are also seen in Kashmiri bronzes, such as a Maitreya in the Nyingjei
Lam Collection (ibid., pp.68-9, fig.1.36) and a Manjushri in the Pritzker
Collection (HAR 58350).

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