TIBETO-CHINESE, YONGLE MARK AND PERIOD (1403-24)

Details

A Gilt Bronze Figure of Manjushri
Tibeto-Chinese, Yongle Mark and Period (1403-24)
Finely cast seated in dhyanasana on a double lotus base, holding a sword and arrow in his right hands, his left hands holding a bow and peforming shri mudra while holding a lotus stem supporting a book, wearing a dhoti gathered in folds about his legs and girdle, adorned with beaded festoons, necklace, armlets, bracelets, anklets, disk-shaped earrings, and finely detailed foliate tiara, his hair drawn into a chignon topped by a lotus ornament with strands of hair falling over his shoulders, his head slightly tilted to the right with a benign expression, the base sealed
7½ in. (19 cm.) high

Lot Essay

Four-armed figures of Manjushri represent a rare iconography; compare other examples in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, illustrated in R. Thurman and M. Rhie, Wisdom and Compassion, 1996, cat. no. 30; in the British Museum, London, see W. Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism, Art and Faith, 1985, cat. no. 308; and in the Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art, see H. Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment, 1995, cat. no. 67.

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