WESTERN WEI DYNASTY (535-556)

Details

A RARE GILT-BRONZE BUDDHIST TRIAD
WESTERN WEI DYNASTY (535-556)
Well cast as Buddha wearing robes that fall in crisp graceful folds seated between two bodhisattvas wearing simple ribbon-tied crowns and standing on lotus petal socles, all three with hands in vitarka mudra, and backed by mandorlas cast with flames, the one behind Buddha cast at the top with a figure of a seated Buddha, all raised on a pedestal base cast with a pair of lions flanking a wing-borne cintamani repeated on the reverse, the reverse of the central mandorla also decorated with flames and a spiraled disc above a lotus stem
5 1/8 in. (13 cm.) high, Japanese wood box

Provenance

Japanese private collection.

Lot Essay

Compare the similar stone Buddhist triad of larger size (23.5 cm.) dated by inscription to the year 542 in the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, included by Jin Sen in Illustrated Chinese Buddha Images through the Ages, Beijing, 1995, no. 166. The iconography of the three figures, as well as the ribbons flanking the headdress' of the bodhisattvas and the pair of lions flanking the cintamani on the base are very similar to the present example.

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics, Jades and Works of Art

View All