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A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha Tibet, circa 18th century image 1
A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha Tibet, circa 18th century image 2
A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha Tibet, circa 18th century image 3
Lot 61

A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha
Tibet, circa 18th century

14 September 2015, 14:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$87,500 inc. premium

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A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha

Tibet, circa 18th century
Clad in a simple robe with a fish-tail pleat over the left shoulder, his hands resting in his lap supporting a begging bowl brimming with a swirl of nectar; complete with removable Chinese brocaded clothes.
16 3/4 in. (42.5 cm) high

Footnotes

西藏 約十八世紀 銅鎏金阿彌陀佛像

There are many different Buddhas represented in Buddhist art. Amitabha is the most common behind images of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. His popularity stems from the proliferation of Mahayana sutras of which many are devoted to him.

Of impressive scale and volume, Amitabha is rendered in his simplest form without ornamentation, donning the nirmanakaya ('body form') of Buddha in the most basic representation of his robe.

Its fish-tail pleat, but otherwise invisible hemline, echoes the Tibetan 13th/14th-century interpretation of the classic Pala style. See a 12th-century Tibetan Shakyamuni, in the Tsug Lakhang in Lhasa, published in von Schroeder, Buddhist Bronzes in Tibet, Vol. II, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 1095, no. 282D.

He is raised on a single row of plump lotus petals, suggesting he would have been set on a separately cast throne or a niche representing a large tree or palace within the Sukhavati Heaven.

For a closely related contemporaneous Shakyamuni with similar proportions, face, and lotus base, see von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 457, no. 126B.

Referenced:
HAR - himalayanart.org/items/33023

Provenance:
Private Collection, USA
Acquired in Kathmandu, early 1960s

Additional information

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