Page 24 - Bonhams Chinese Art March 2016 New York

Considered to be one of his closest and most outstanding disciples, Lot 8037 in the collector’s garden
the Arhat Mahakasyapa (Chinese: Mohe Jiaye) in Han Buddhist
traditions is usually depicted in attendance upon the historical Buddha The two figures may have flanked either a standing or seated figure of
Sakyamuni together with his youthful friend and fellow Sangha the Buddha of equally impressive size, as suggested by the massive
member, Ananda. In the present lot, as is typical, Mahakasyapa gilt bronze triad in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, originally from
furrows his brow in a portentous heavy frown above hands held out in the Muneuchi Nitta Collection: see Chen Huixia, Li Dai Jin Tong Fo Zao
front of his chest in prayer. In this way, as the older, more serious figure Xiang Te Zhen Tu Lu (A Special Exhibition of Recently Acquired Gilt
of the two, Mahakasyapa guides the devout Buddhist practitioner Bronze Buddhist Images), Taibei, 1996, nos. 25-27, pp. 86-89. The
using his strong paternalistic presence, perhaps instilling a sense of Buddha is seated between two elaborately dressed standing figures of
awe and fearful wonder, as well as strength, rigor and calm. Guanyin, all supported on matching lotus pedestals (312cm height of
central figure, 240cm height of the attendants).
The monumental size of the present lot is particularly well suited to the
portrayal of these characteristics: this is a father-figure both overbearing An early 17th century date was proposed for that Buddha triad
and stern, yet somehow nurturing in his strength and power. The now in the National Palace Museum, based on the similarity
supreme technical achievements of late Ming artisans are especially between the face of the seated Buddha to that of a smaller gilt
suited to conveying this, using the strong, confident casting of the age bronze standing Baby Buddha, dated by inscription to Tianqi fourth
to create a piece with individualized and memorable features. year (1624), also in the Nitta Collection, published in the National
Palace Museum exhibition Jin Tong Fo Zao Xiang Te Zhan Tu Lu
The tradition of depicting the Sakyamuni Buddha with these two (The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom), Taibei 1987, pl. 119.
disciples can be traced back at least to Northern Wei sculptures (386– The faces of both the Nitta infant Buddha and the massive seated
535CE) found at the Longmen caves in China’s Henan Province. Other Buddha show remarkable similarity to that of the likely mate to the
examples can be seen on a Western Wei stele dated to 549CE in the present lot, the massive bronze Ananda from the collection of Leon
Avery Brundage Collection at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and Jean Dalva.
(d’Argencé and Turner, The Avery Brundage Collection, Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean Sculpture, 1974, p. 113). In that example, the Terese Tse Bartholomew
monks’ features were not sufficiently distinct for positive identification, Curator Emeritus
but by the latter half of the 7th century, in a mid Tang stele, also from
the Avery Brundage Collection, Ananda has evolved into his well- The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
known form of a youth standing on the left, with Mahakasyapa on the
right, the familiar old man, complete with creases on his forehead,
bushy eyebrows and a brooding expression (ibid., p. 178).

Though they would not come to play theological roles as major
as Bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) and Manjusri
(Wenshushili), Arhats (Chinese: Luohan) like this Mahakasyapa figure
still had an important role in Chinese religion as it developed through
the Ming. One example can be seen in the character of Mulian
(Sanskrit: Maudgalyana), the filial son who rescued his mother from
the realm of the hungry ghosts, as described by the Ullambana Sutra
(Chinese: Fo Shuo Bao En Fengpen Jing), ostensibly a Mahayana
text but with a very comfortingly native Confucian and Chinese
ideological moral. From this text came numerous examples of operas
and literature, as well as the Zhongyuan or Yulanpan festival of the
fifteenth day of the Seventh lunar Month where food is distributed so
that the dead, like Mulian’s mother, can be saved. This Confucian/
Buddhist syncretism went on to be eagerly adopted by the Japanese
for their Obon festival. Interestingly, this figure of Maudgalyana is the
Arhat usually in attendance upon the Buddha Sakyamuni in Tibetan
iconography, there as in Ming statues like the present lot, clasping its
hands together in the prayerful Namaskaramudra.

Although large-scale Buddhist figures in wood from the Ming period are
preserved in private and public collections throughout the world, very
few bronze figures of comparable size survive. This Mahakasyapa is
likely the pair to a figure of Ananda from the collection of Leon and Jean
Dalva, sold at Sotheby’s New York, sale 9191, Images of Enlightenment:
Devotional Works of Art and Paintings, 17 September 2014, lot 430.

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