Page 26 - 2020 Sept 22 Himalayin and Indian Works of Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Works of Art | Sotheby's

bronze is lustrous with no indication that it has been buried and subsequently excavated. This suggests that the statue may have
been taken to Tibet as a devotional image, or for safekeeping during religious upheaval, like so many surviving Kashmir bronzes.
Edges and details of the bronze are abraded and softened. Statues were regularly handled in Kashmir while being ritually bathed
and anointed in acts of worship described by the Sanskrit term abhisekham, and the continual cleaning of bronzes during
lustration leads to surface wear. Physical worship of sculpture does not occur in Tibet, and the abrasion of the bronze’s surface
would have taken place prior to its leaving Kashmir.

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