Page 114 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

896
A SILVER INLAID COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF TARA
SWAT VALLEY, CIRCA 8TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61965
4 2/3 in. (11.8 cm) high
$120,000 - 180,000
斯瓦特 約八世紀 銅錯銀度母像

Seated in ‘royal ease’ (lalitasana) on her lotus base, with her right hand in varada mudra,
Tara offers to grant her devotee’s wishes. She wears a patterned lower garment, and a
tight-fitting tunic with an inverted u-shaped hem and pendent ends. Tara holds the stem of
a lotus in her left hand, a symbol of her divine purity and yielding generosity. Her face is well
worn from centuries of propitiation, yet her silver inlaid eyes remain a potent reminder of
Tara’s supranatural presence and charity.

In the 4th and 5th centuries, Swat Valley served as an important regional haven for
Buddhism while Huns raided nearby monasteries throughout ancient Gandhara’s lush
plains. Then, Buddhist bronzes from Swat Valley served as an important artistic and
religious link between the former civilization of Gandhara and the Gupta Period of Northern
India to the rising states of Kashmir, Gilgit, and Western Tibet. Swat Valley bronzes provide
some of the earliest sculptural depictions of Tara.

The present lot’s stylistic features are matched by other Swat Valley bronzes from the same
period. A similar treatment of Tara’s face, hair, and drapery is represented in a bronze held in
the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology (EA1997.200), and another published in von
Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, p.97, no.12G. Further examples showing similar
tunics are published in Pal, The Arts of Kashmir, 2007, p.72, fig.63 and p.86, fig.85, and
Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir, New Delhi, 1975, p.185, no. 69, where the scarf creates a hood-
like panel behind the head.

Provenance
Benny Rustenburg, Lotus Crown Group, Hong Kong, 20 June 2000
Private European Collection

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