TIBET, 18TH CENTURY

In eighteenth-century Qing tantric sculpture, Yama Dharmaraja appears as the fierce, buffalo-headed Lord of Death, crowned with skulls and wreathed in flaming hair. He embodies karmic inevitability and impermanence, subdued by the wisdom of Manjushri, ultimately serving as a wrathful, didactic guardian of the Dharma. Many examples proliferate during the period, including a Yama Dharmaraja sold at Christie’s, New York, 13 September 2011, lot 375, and Bonhams, Hong Kong, 2 October 2018, lot 172. For another example, see also von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, pp. 550–51, no. 157E.