Page 14 - 2020 December 2 Bonhams Arts of Devotion bronzes and Stone carvings

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A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF ELEVEN-HEADED The projecting head at the back of the sculpture dons an enigmatic
AVALOKITESHVARA peaked cap that resembles those worn by Sogdian merchants who
CENTRAL ASIA, 7TH/8TH CENTURY lead caravans along the ancient Silk Road (cf. www.sogdians.si.edu).
Himalayan Resources item no.41248 One of the earliest Buddhist bronzes made in China, c.300 CE, has
16.5 cm (6 1/2 in.) high an inscription stating it was produced in Xian for a Central Asian
patron (Wyatt et al., China: Dawn of a Golden Age 200-750 AD, New
HKD500,000 - 700,000 York, 2004, p.134, no.44). The present sculpture’s enigmatic blend
of Tang and Central Asian stylistic features suggests it has a similar
provenance, making it an important early Buddhist artifact from the Silk
中亞 七/八世紀 十一面觀音銅像 Road depicting this cosmic form of Avalokiteshvara.

The origins of Eleven-Headed Avalokiteshvara are mired in mystery. Published
However, one of the deity’s earliest representations, dating to the Deborah E. Klimburg, The Silk Route and the Diamond Path: Esoteric
5th century, is situated in the Kanheri cave-chapel in Western India. Buddhist Art on the Trans-Himalayan Trade Routes, Los Angeles,
Traveling along the Silk Road, the Ekadasamukham - the earliest text 1982, p.178, pl.94.
associated with the deity - was found in Gilgit dating to the 5th/6th Chandra L. Reedy, Himalayan Bronzes: Technology, Style and Choices,
century. By the mid-7th century, the image became popular in China Newark, 1997, p.181, no. W115.
following the Buddhist translations of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang.
In parallel, the depiction of the deity’s multiple heads changed from an Exhibited
‘Indian’ vertical stack to a new ‘tiara’ or ‘crown style’ favored in The Silk Route and the Diamond Path: Esoteric Buddhist Art on
China–as seen in Dunhuang. Compare the arrangement, as it appears the Trans-Himalayan Trade Routes; Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery,
in the present bronze, with a Tang dynasty six-armed Eleven-Headed University of California, Los Angeles, Nov. 7, 1982 - Jan. 2, 1983; Asia
Guanyin in the Art Institute of Chicago (1982.1676). Society Gallery, Feb. 6 - Apr. 3, 1983; National Museum of Natural
History, National Museum of Man, Smithsonian Institution, Apr. 28 -
The present sculpture exhibits the 7th-century Tang dynasty style, June 30, 1983.
drawing clear similarities with Chinese sculptures of Avalokiteshvara
with a single head (Reedy, Himalayan Bronzes, Newark, 1997, p.260, Provenance
U 335 and von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculpture in Tibet, p.1234, Private Californian Collection since 1980
no.342A-B); and an example in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (EA
2000.24). However, the modeling of the base, the face, and the leaded
bronze alloy the sculpture is made of, has lead scholars to suggest
it has a Central Asian provenance (Reedy, op. cit., p.181; Klimburg-
Salter, The Silk Route and the Diamond Path, Los Angeles, 1982,
p.178, pl.94.)

Several of the bronze’s features are in keeping with art produced
among the oasis kingdoms of Central Asia along the ancient Silk Road.
For example, a figure from Kocho in the Museum Für Indische Kunst
(MIK III 539) has the same pedestal structure (Hartel, Along the Ancient
Silk Routes, New York, 1982, p.165, no.101). Also compare a 7th-
century wood sculpture from Toyuk (Kocho Oasis) held in the Dahlem
Museum of Asian Art, Berlin. The top band of petals around the
present sculpture’s lotus base is consistent with bronzes from the Swat
Valley (von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculpture in Tibet, Vol.I, Hong Kong,
2001, p.33, no.2B). The bottom band of petals is consistent with a
Kashmiri panel found in Khotan, now in the National Museum, New
Delhi (Linrothe, Collecting Paradise, New York, 2014, p.33, fig.1.3).

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