Page 28 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

涅槃寂静 | THE COLLECTION OF DAVID AND NAYDA UTTERBERG (LOTs 1-20)

5
ANONYMOUS (JAPAN, LATE 13TH CENTURY)
Amida Triad

Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold and silver on silk
31√ x 16æ in. (81 x 42.5 cm.)

$400,000-500,000
阿弥陀三尊図
PROVENANCE:
Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo
London Gallery, Tokyo
LITERATURE:
Ariga Yoshitaka," Amida Triad", in London Gallery, Ltd., ed,
Buddha’s Smile: Masterpieces of Japanese Buddhist Art (Tokyo: London
Gallery, Ltd., 2000), exh. cat. no. 105.
Japanese art from the Tajima collection (New York: Sugitomo Works of
Art, 1987). cat. no.8.
There is only one other painting of this subject, a registered
Important Cultural Property in the collection of Daigo-ji, a major
Shingon temple on the southern outskirts of Kyoto. The Daigo-
ji Amida Triad was exhibited in 1996 at the Sano Art Museum
in Mishima, Shizuoka, and again at the Nara National Museum
in 2014, dated to the thirteenth century. The cool palette and
abundant use of gold and silver are characteristics of the Kamakura
period. The Utterberg and Daigo-ji paintings are rare and important
examples of the comingling of Esoteric Buddhist Shingon
iconography with the Tendai Pure Land (Jodo) school of Buddhism
focused on Amida, the Buddha of the Western Paradise. Amida has
been transferred to an Esoteric Buddhist context. The painting was
likely used as a visualization exercise for rebirth in Amida’s Pure
Land.

Poised on a splendid lotus throne, a golden-bodied Amida sits
in severe frontal symmetry within a geometrically precise, pearly
white lunar disc. Both hands rest in his lap, thumbs and forefingers
touching, in the gesture signifying the highest level of meditation.
He is intensely, hypnotically focused. Behind his hands is a chakra
(rinbo in Japanese), or “wheel of the Law,” one of the oldest
Buddhist symbols; in the Shingon tradition, the chakra occupies a
central position on the ritual altar.