A Bronze Figure of Vajrabhairava

TIBETO-CHINESE, 17TH/18TH CENTURY

Details

A Bronze Figure of Vajrabhairava
Tibeto-Chinese, 17th/18th Century
Powerfully cast standing in alidhasana in yab-yum with his consort on a double lotus base with beaded rims, holding the chopper and skull cup in his principal hands, his remaining arms radiating around him holding numerous attributes and a flared elephant hide across his back, adorned with beaded festoons, pendent jewels and a garland of severed heads, his heads with ferocious expressions centered by the principal bull's head, with two polychromed fragments of a flaming mandorla, heavy casting
16½ in. (41.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Private Collection, Germany

Lot Essay

This bronze is skillfully constructed out of several separately cast pieces allowing for a high level of complexity. Compare a smaller bronze of Vajrabhairava, with similar modelling to the faces and elephant hide spanning across the back, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see P. Pal, Art of Tibet, 1983, cat. no. S28; and another example in the Zimmerman Family Collection, with hands similarly highlighted in dull gold achieving dramatic expressiveness, see P. Pal et. al., Art of the Himalayas, Treasures from Nepal and Tibet, 1991, cat. no. 72.

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