Page 63 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

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THREE GOLD HAIR PINS A SMALL GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF THE SEATED
Yuan/Ming Dynasty BUDDHA VAIROCANA
The first with a head cast from a thin gold sheet revealing a floral motif, Late Ming-Early Qing Dynasty
the upper half of the long, flat tine chased with a scrolling pattern; the Seated in vajrasana, his hands held in abhisekana mudra, (annointing)
second with two long tines, the head with a symmetrical design; the his robes edged in lotus scrolling and tied at the waist, his chest
third fashioned into a phoenix riding an auspicious cloud, the separate bared, the face with a soft meditative expression below a large five-leaf
tine made from celadon jade. diadem each accommodating a buddha image, Tathagatas, within a
6 1/2in (16.5cm) long, the longest nimbus, large ribbons falling from the crown along the shoulders and
down the sides, no base plate.
$4,000 - 6,000 6 1/4in (15.8cm) high

元/明 金釵三件 $3,000 - 4,000

For a large grouping of gold hair ornaments dating from the Tang 明晚期至清早期 銅鎏金大日如來佛坐像
to the Qing, see Bonhams, New York, Elegant Embellishments, 21
September 2020; For a group of earlier Liao -Song dynasty examples, The hand gesture abhisekana mudra is not commonly applied to the
see J.J Lally & Co. Oriental Art, Silver and Gold in Ancient China, New Vairocana in Tibetan Buddhism but was adopted in its unique Chinese
York, 2012, No’s 41-49. form. Other characteristics include the full-rounded face and the floral
design on the garment edges. The Vairocana is one of the pricipal
64 dieties of the Five Takagatas. The meaning of the word Vairocana is
NO LOT “the all pervasive light of the sun”.

For much larger buddha images with the same hand gesture, see the
Royal Ontario Museum example www.rom.on.ca, Buddhist sculpture,
reportedly from Shijiazhuang in Hebei province and another from the
Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum Fur Volkerkunde,
Germany, is illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen, Chinese Art in Overseas
Collection, Buddhist Sculpture II, Taipei, 1990, p. 185, no. 175.

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