Page 280 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong Sotheby's April 2017

3692

A FINELY CAST GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF
VAISRAVANA
MING DYNASTY

the guardian figure intricately cast standing with legs slightly
apart, his right hand lowered in sikharamudra and his left arm
raised supporting a stupa, dressed in impressive chain-mail
armour with the shoulders adorned with fierce monster-mask
epaulets, the belly belted with a wide waist band similarly
decorated with a powerfully modelled animal mask, wearing
a celestial scarf billowing in the wind and trailing down to
his tall boots decorated with ruyi-shaped motifs, his face
characterised by pronounced cheek bones and bulging eyes
below furrowed eyebrows, gazing sternly at a distance, the
neatly combed hair surmounted by an elaborate headdress
in openwork, all raised on a kidney-shaped bronze stand
modelled as a rocky base
overall height 36 cm, 14⅛ in.

HK$ 700,000-900,000
US$ 90,500-116,000

明 鎏金銅多聞天王像

This finely cast figure, depicted holding a stupa, represents
Vaisravana, one of the heavenly kings residing in the temporal
world to guard the four cardinal points and protect the
Buddhist Law (dharma), his cardinal direction being the North.
Guardian figures were originally placed on the four sides of
stupas, guarding the Buddhist relics inside, but gilt-bronze
sculptures of this form would have been produced for temples
and principal places of worship.
Two smaller examples attributed to the Ming dynasty in the
Fuller Memorial Collection, Seattle Art Museum, are illustrated
in Hugo Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, New York,
1967, pls 93-94. See also a pair of large guardian figures sold
in our London rooms, 16th June 1998, lot 7, and now in the
collection of Compton Verney Art Gallery, (accession no.
CVCSC 0244.2.A).
The role of Vaisravana gradually became popularised as a folk
deity and general protector. Woodblock prints of Vaisravana
survive from the Five Dynasties period, reflecting the fear of
being invaded by barbarians from the north. A woodblock print
of Vaisravana dating to the Five Dynasties period was sold in
these rooms, 30th May 2016, from the Mi Yun Hall Collection.

278 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比