Page 18 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art London Nov. 2019

This figure may represent either Akshobhya, assuming it was part of
a set of Five Presiding Buddhas, or Crowned Shakyamuni, assuming
it was the central element of its ensemble. While Shakyamuni’s
renunciation of his royal birth makes it unlikely he would be represented
with a crown, Bautze-Picron has explained the coalescence of Indian
political, devotional, and philosophical developments that resulted in
Shakyamuni’s spiritual authority being emphasised with royal regalia by
the end of the first millenium AD; see Bautze-Picron, The Bejewelled
Buddha from India to Burma, New Delhi, 2010.

Compare with a related but slightly earlier gilt-bronze figure of
Buddha Vajradhara, 14th century, illustrated by A.Lutz, On the Path to
Enlightenment: The Berti Aschman Foundation of Tibetan Art at the
Museum Rietberg Zurich, Zurich, 1995, p.61, no.21.

16 | BONHAMS