A RARE DOCUMENTARY RED-LACQUERED GILT-BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF VAIROCANA BUDDHA

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A RARE DOCUMENTARY RED-LACQUERED GILT-BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF VAIROCANA BUDDHA
11TH/13TH CENTURY, DATED SHENG MING 2ND YEAR, HOU LI KINGDOM, YUNNAN

Seated in dhyanasana, the hands held in bhumisparsamudra, wearing neatly folded robes draped over his left shoulder and falling gracefully over the left arm, across the left side of his torso and around both legs, the right arm and right side of the chest exposed, with an elaborate armband encircling the upper right arm, the face passive and slightly smiling, the pendulous ears with circular earrings with whorl patterns, the forehead centered by a coral bead, the hair in tight curls with a semi-circular turquoise stone inset into the center of the lower part of the usnisa, and another of knop shape rising from the top, with extensive red lacquer and gilding remaining, the interior cast with a lengthy documentary inscription in a rectangular panel centered by a talisman character which includes the two characters, Huang Yu (Emperor Imperial), below an indecipherable character
18¾in. (47.7cm.) high

Lot Essay

The lengthy inscription refers to the name Sheng Ming and includes the cyclical date gui wei. It also includes the names of three donors, two illegible, the other reading Zhang XingMmng.
Sheng Ming is known, but his reign dates are not. His Kingdom was Hou Li in Yunnan province. Interestingly, a similar seated bronze figure, perhaps the most comparable, in the Cleveland Museum of Art, illustrated in Fojiao Diaosu Mingping Tulu (An Illustrated Collection of Famous Buddhist Sculptures), Beijing, 1995, p. 147, no. 139, is dated to 937-1094 and ascribed to the kingdom of Da Li, which was the earlier name for the kingdom of Hou Li
A similar seated bronze Buddha dated to the Five Dynasties (907-960) from the Nitta Group Collection, also wearing an unusual armlet, was included in the exhibition, The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Catalogue, p. 185, pl. 89. Another was sold in our London rooms, June 16, 1986, lot 15, with a thermoluminescence test result dating it to the Liao dynasty (907-1125)