QING DYNASTY, PALA REVIVAL STYLE, 17TH-18TH CENTURY

Details

A COPPER AND SILVER-INLAID BRONZE FIGURE OF TARA
QING DYNASTY, PALA REVIVAL STYLE, 17TH-18TH CENTURY
The figure stands on a double lotus base with the right hand extended in varadamudra and her left raised in vitarkamudra, dressed in a billowing dhoti with the folds inlaid with copper and silver and adorned with various jewellery. The face is serene, surmounted by a foliate crown, and her hair arranged in a chignon and topped with a flaming jewel. Two sinuous lotus stems arise from the base and blossom at her shoulders.
7 in. (18 cm.) high

Provenance

An old Swiss private collection, acquired before 2000

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Lot Essay

Tibetan-style Buddhism was revived to an extraordinary extent under the Qing emperors, both for personal and political reasons, resulting in a surge in the production of Buddhist sculpture and painting. The artisans of the Beijing workshops increasingly emulated sculpture from different periods and geographic areas, using as models the bronzes given as gifts from Tibetan dignitaries to the Qing court. Examples of Pala-style sculpture, from 9th-12th century Northeastern India, still remain in The Palace Museum Collection. Compare with a Pala-period bronze figure of Vajrasattva, illustrated in Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected in the Qing Palace, Beijing, 1992, Catalogue, no. 56 and with a Pala-style Tibetan brass statue of Manjushri (see ibid., Catalogue, no. 53).

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