Mark Rasmussen
International Director
Lot 624
A SILVER INLAID COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF A KAGYU HIERARCH TIBET, 13TH/14TH CENTURY
23 September 2020, 15:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$23,825 inc. premium
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A SILVER INLAID COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF A KAGYU HIERARCH
TIBET, 13TH/14TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.68484
4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm) high
Himalayan Art Resources item no.68484
4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm) high
Footnotes
西藏 十三/十四世紀 銅錯銀噶舉上師像
While clearly a portrait of a Tibetan lama, this rather unique bronze departs from convention by affording its subject physical features of Shakyamuni Buddha. This includes the arrangement of the robe in 'open mode', the elongated earlobes, and the tiny cranial protuberance (ushnisha) on the top of the head. The portrait is almost certainly of an eminent hierarch from the early Kagyu orders which had a tradition of considering key figures as reincarnations of Shakyamuni, starting with the great Phagmodrupa (1110-70) (Dinwiddie (ed.), Portraits of the Masters, London, 2003, pp.132-3). This reading is consistent with the sculpture's portrayal of a stout, brassy figure wrapped in a heavy meditation cloak with a rounded silhouette, as is frequented in early Kagyu portraits. For example, compare the following 12th-to-14th-century portraits of The First Gangkar Lama Dragpa'I Pel, of Lama Shang, and of another Kagyu lama formerly in the Nyingjei Lam Collection (Bonhams, New York, 14 March 2017, lot 3231 and Hong Kong, 29 November 2016, lots 103 & 116, respectively).
Published
David Weldon and Jane Casey Singer, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection, London, 1999, pl.35, pp.162-3.
F. Ricca, Arte Buddhista Tibetana: Dei e Demoni dell' Himalaya, Turin, 2004, fig.IV.37.
Exhibited
The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 6 October – 30 December 1999.
Arte Buddhista Tibetana: Dei e Demoni dell' Himalaya, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, June – September 2004.
Casting the Divine: Sculptures of the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2 March 2012 – 11 February 2013.
Provenance
The Nyingjei Lam Collection
On loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1996 – 2005
On loan to the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2005 – 2019