Page 149 - 2021 March 17th, Indian and Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art, Christie's New York City

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BARONESS EVA BESSENYEY
457
A BRONZE FIGURE OF SARASWATI
TIBETO-CHINESE, 18TH CENTURY
5 in. (12.7 cm.) high
$10,000-15,000
PROVENANCE:
Christie's New York, 25 March 1999, lot 93.
LITERATURE:
Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 24493.

中國 十八世紀 藏傳銅辯才天女坐像
來源:
紐約佳士得，1999年3月25日，拍品93。
出版:
“喜馬拉雅藝術資源”（Himalayan Art Resources），
編號24493。

Tibetan Buddhism was patronized by the Qing emperors,
particularly the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722) and his
grandson, the Qianlong Emperor (1736-1795), both for
personal and political reasons, resulting in a surge in the
production of Buddhist sculpture and painting. During the
reign of Qianlong, the artisans of the Beijing workshops
emulated sculpture from different periods and geographic
areas, using as models the bronzes given as gifts from
Tibetan dignitaries to the Qing court. Examples of Pala-
style sculpture, from ninth-twelfth century Northeastern
India, as well as seventeenth-eighteenth century works
reviving that earlier style, still remain in The Palace Museum
Collection; see, for example, a near identical bronze figure
of Saraswati, also in the Pala Revival style, illustrated in
Buddhist Statues of Tibet – The Complete Collection of
Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2003, p. 199,
cat. no. 190.