Page 24 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art March 2016 New York

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A SILVER AND COPPER INLAID COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF BUDDHA
Kashmiri, circa 8th century
His right hand in varada mudra with ring on the little figure, his left upraised holding the hem
of his pleated robe, his crowned head with copper inlaid lips and brilliant silver inlaid eyes.
7 1/4 in. (18.41 cm) high
$200,000 - 300,000

克什米爾地區 約八世紀 銅錯銀佛坐像

This charismatic, heavily published, bronze seats the Buddha on a molded cushion supported
by a yaksha, two lions, and four throne legs that rest upon a brick-like plinth with a recumbent
animals, and male and female donor figures with upturned gazes and hands in obeisance
towards him.

The inspiration for his tasseled mantle can be traced back as far as 3rd-century Sassanian
Transoxania by route of a Gandharan fragment published in Kurita, Gandara bijutsu, Vol. II,
Tokyo, 1988, p. 291, fig. 4, and also in Harle & Bautze-Picron (eds.), Makaranda: Essays in
Honour of Dr. James C. Harle, Delhi, 1990, p. 58, fig. 14. The so-called princely figure wears a
strikingly similar four-cornered cape populated with a crescent moon and stars. Harle argues
it as evidence for cultural exchange between the Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE) and the
Ancient region of Gandhara (ibid., p. 58), ‘...the star-and-crescent motif [is] observed for the
first time on a helmet of the Sasanian King Ardashir I [r. 224-241].’

Now, in the inherited regions of Kashmir, circa 8th century, the crescent moon and star appear
to have transitioned to either side of this Buddha’s shoulders. A similar placement is found on
the famed Rockefeller Kashmiri Buddha at the Asia Society, New York (Linrothe, Collecting
Paradise, New York, 2004, p. 60, fig. 1.28), and on another the Pritzker Collection (Siudmak,
‘The Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Ancient Kashmir and its Influences’, in Handbook of
Oriental Studies, Vol. 28, Leiden, 2013, p. 320, pl. 146). However, in the Rockefeller example
they appear as cupped rosettes above the shoulders, whereas in the Pritzker example they
appear as finials above stupas. Linrothe suggests that the star has now been reinterpreted as
the moon, ‘The disks apparently indicate the sun and the moon and are to be thought of as
effulgences of light’ (op. cit., p. 56).

Published
Wai-Kam Ho, ‘Notes on Chinese Sculpture from Northern Ch’i to Sui, Part I’, in Archives of
Asian Art, Vol. XXII, 1968-9, p. 24, fig. 23.
Fong Chow, Arts from the Roof of Asia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971, no. 5.
Pratapaditya Pal, ‘Bronzes of Kashmir, their Sources and Influences’, in Journal of the Royal
Society of Arts, Vol. CXXI, No. 5207, London, 1973, pp. 726-49, fig. 7.
Pratapaditya Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir, Graz, 1975, pp. 110-1, fig. 32.
Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, pp. 116-7, no. 15f.

Exhibited
Arts from the Roof of Asia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971.

Provenance
Pan-Asian Collection, by 1967
Robert H. Ellsworth
Sotheby’s, New York, 24 September 1997, lot 48
Private Collection, New York, 1997-present

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