Page 192 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

944
A COPPER FIGURE OF KRISHNA YAMARI
TIBET, 12TH/13TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.68327
6 1/4 in. (16 cm) high
$80,000 - 120,000

西藏 十二/十三世紀 黑閻魔敵銅像

The distinctive early Tibetan bronze depicts Krishna Yamari standing victoriously astride
a buffalo with his right hand aloft. Krishna Yamari’s countenance is semi-wrathful: still
handsome, not fanged, and with flowers in his hair, but also with furrowed brow and snakes
for jewelry; his body is strong and supple, and not gargantuan. The hilt of the sword he
once brandished remains in his raised right hand, and his left shows the gesture of warding
off evil tarjarni mudra. He wears a tiger skin across his waist, and a sacred cord slack
across his bare torso. The buffalo beneath him is remarkably spirited and almost appears as
if it is about to stand up, while Krishna Yamari looks perfectly poised to mitigate his balance
and be transported on the buffalo’s back.

Yamari is a popular meditational deity (yidam) in Tibetan Buddhism, which has three main
forms and associated literature: Raktayamari, Vajrabhairava, and Krishna Yamari. There are
abundant variations within these three forms, most all of them vivid and exotic. The form of
Krishna Yamari depicted by this bronze is rare and conforms within a set of variations within
different tradition between the 12th and 14th centuries. Another bronze of Krishna Yamari of
about the same period shows him with six arms and astride a moving buffalo (Heller, Early
Himalayan Sculpture, Oxford, 2008, p.137, no.46; HAR 35036).

By date and style, this sculpture is related to a bronze figure of Vajrapani sold at Bonhams,
New York, 17 March 2014, lot 3. Informative comparisons can be made with other early
and powerful representations of Buddhist deities, such as a 9th-century Vajrapurusha in
the Norton Simon Museum and a 10th-century Padmataka in the Jokhang, Lhasa (see,
Pal, Art of the Himalayas and China, Pasadena, 2003, p.74, no.46; and von Schroeder,
Buddhist Sculpture in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, p.473, nos.147B & 149A, respectively). A
10th-century deity in a more conventional pose shares similar modeling of the body and
adornments (Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure, Chicago, 2003, p.33, no.9). Cast in
an alloy rich in copper, the present bronze is dense in the hand and has a beautiful, glossy
chocolate brown patina.

Exhibited
Casting the Divine: Sculptures of the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, New
York (2012–13)

Provenance
The Nyingjei Lam Collection
On loan to the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2005-2019

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