Page 110 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

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A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF MAHAKALA PANJARANATA Site of Late Buddhist Iconography and Its Position within the Asian
TIBET, 14TH CENTURY Buddhist World”, in Silk Road Art and Archaeology, vol.2, 1991/2,
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61940 fig.16). Meanwhile, a 9th-century Licchavi stele in the Syambunath
6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm) high Museum, Kathmandu, provides a precedent for the subject in Nepal
(Huntington Archive 50555).
$12,000 - 16,000
Mahakala is here depicted as a protector of the Hevajra Tantra, and
西藏 十四世紀 兩臂大黑天銅像 the treatment of this figure’s base suggests it was part of a larger
ensemble, perhaps dedicated to Hevajra. The bronze’s style and
Mahakala holds a ritual knife over a skull bowl, while clutching the brassy alloy are suggestive of the region of Mustang, bordering Nepal
skull-scepter in the crook of his left arm. He is clad in snakes and and Tibet.
wears a tiger skin, which the artist has chased into a mesmerizing
pattern. This corpulent and hieratic bronze figure of Mahakala standing Published
on a corpse closely follows formal iconographic conventions for the Helmut Uhlig, Tantrische Kunst des Buddhismus, Berlin, 1981, p.222,
protector deity established in Pala and Licchavi art. no.107.

A Pala precedent for this mode of depiction is exemplified by a c.11th- Provenance
century stele of Mahakala from Lakhi Sarai (Bautze-Picron, “An Indian Nik Douglas, New York, 1981
Private New York Collection

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