TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Details

A GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF BUDDHA SAKYAMUNI
TANG DYNASTY (618-907)
The hollow-cast figure shown seated in virasana in front of a mandorla of pierced foliate scroll centered by a lotus flower behind the head, with right hand raised in abhayamudra and the left resting on the left knee, wearing loose-fitting monk's robes falling in deep U-shaped folds diagonally across the bare torso and draping over the front of a separate, oval pedestal base that rises from a pierced trefoil base, the face cast with benign expression and the hair simply delineated below the rounded usnisa, with rich gilding throughout
8 1/8 in. (20.6 cm.) high, base

Exhibited

London, Eskenazi, Tang, 9 June - 3 July 1987, no. 18.

Lot Essay

Compare the gilt-bronze figure of Sakyamuni Buddhi dated to the Sui/Tang period with similar treatment of the drapery in The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen, Buddhist Sculpture, Taipei, 1986, p. 86, no. 81. Other comparable gilt-bronze figures of Tang date include the example in the Chang Foundation, illustrated in Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal, Taipei, 1993, p. 17, no. 1, and the figure in the Sano Art Museum, Japan, illustrated in Zhongguo liu shi hai wai fo jiao zao xiang zong he tu mu (Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue of Chinese Buddhist Statues in Overseas Collections), vol. 4, Beijing, 2005, p. 866. The present figure is distinguished from these examples, however, by the particularly sensitive treatment of the drapery and the proportions of the body, which are in some ways more closely related to those of the well-known Sui-dynasty gilt-bronze figure of seated Maitreya from the Nitta Group Collection included in the exhibition, The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, The National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1987, p. 169, pl. 72.

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