Page 144 - 2019 September 11th Christie's New York Chiense Art Himalayan bronzes and art

372
A RARE BRONZE FIGURE OF GREEN TARA
TIBET OR CHINA, YUAN DYNASTY, 14TH CENTURY
6¬ in. (16.8 cm.) high

$80,000-120,000

PROVENANCE
European art market, by repute.
Robert Bigler, Zurich, by 2011.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2015.

The present fgure of Tara can be associated stylistically with a small corpus collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing and illustrated in The Complete
of works carried out during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1369), when the infuence Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum-Buddhist Statues of Tibet, Hong
of Nepalese sculpture was perhaps most salient in China and its environs, and Kong, 2003, p. 220, no. 209, and p. 221, no. 221, respectively. However, a
which had a direct infuence on the imperial Buddhist sculpture of the early number of uninscribed sculptures, through the work of researchers such as
Ming emperors Yongle (r. 1402-1424) and Xuande (r. 1425-1435). Robert Bigler and Phillip Adams, have been stylistically associated with the
Nepalese and Tibetan-infuenced Chinese Buddhist sculpture of this period.
During the Yuan period, the Mongols under Kublai Khan had extended Such works include a magnifcent gilt-bronze fgure of Avalokiteshvara sold
their empire from the steppes of Mongolia across all of Asia and even into at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2008, lot 616 (illustrated below), as well as
parts of Europe. Kublai Khan had been greatly infuenced by his personal gilt-bronze fgure of a bodhisattva illustrated by H. Kreijger in Godenbeelden
tutor, the Sakya lama Phakpa (1235-1280), and eventually installed him as uit Tibet, Amsterdam, 1989, p. 80, and numerous fgures in R. Bigler’s Before
the vassal ruler of Tibet, while simultaneously adopting Tibetan Buddhism Yongle: Chinese and Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist Sculpture of the 13th and 14th
as the oficial religion of the empire. As such, the patronization of Tibetan Centuries, Zurich, 2015. All of these works share similar bodily proportions,
Buddhism throughout China greatly increased, and temples devoted to including a pinched waist over wide hips and narrowly-set, benevolent facial
Tibetan Buddhism were constructed and flled with the necessary images of features within a wide and nearly rectangular face, and similar treatment of
worship. It was Phakpa who summoned the legendary young Nepalese artist, the lotus base, jewelry, and crown. The lotus base of the present fgure can
Anige, to construct a golden stupa in Tibet, and at Kublai Khan’s summoning, in particular be compared to the bronze fgure of Shakyamuni Buddha in the
Anige later traveled on to China, where he was eventually named the director Beijing Palace Museum dated to 1336: both bases display somewhat ovular
of all artisan classes of the imperial workshops. Anige’s importance within the lotus petals separated from the beaded rims at both top and bottom by a small
Yuan imperial court, as well as the infux of Nepalese craftsmen during this area of undecorated space. The Beijing Palace Museum Shakyamuni and the
period, greatly infuenced the Buddhist art of Yuan China. present work also share an even, brownish patina that is uncharacteristic of
Tibetan or Nepalese sculpture of this period.
There are only a few works of Tibetan-style Buddhist sculpture dated to
the Yuan period known: a gilt-bronze fgure of Manjushri dated 1305 and a Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 24544.
bronze fgure of Shakyamuni Buddha dated by inscription to 1336, both in the

An imperial gilt bronze fgure of Avalokiteshvara; Bodhisattva Manjushri, dated 1305; Gilt bronze, Seated statue of Sakyamuni; Zhiyuan Period,
Tibet, 14th Century; 12¼ in. (31 cm.) high; sold at height 7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm.); The Palace Museum, Yuan Dynasty; Inland; Brass; Height: 21.5 cm., G.
Christie’s New York, 21 March 2008, lot 616, for US Beijing [Exhib.], after J. C.Y. Watt, The World of Bowuyuan, The Complete Collection of Treasures of
$1,049,000. Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, New the Palace Museum: Buddhist Statues of Tibet, Hong
York, 2010, p. 111, fg. 145. Kong, 2003, p. 221, pl. 210.
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