Footnotes

漢藏風格 元 十四世紀初 銅鎏金綠度母像

This rare and elegant bronze of Green Tara belongs to the small group of Vajrayana Buddhist sculptures created during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). Green Tara is worshiped as a liberator who endeavors to free devotees from the suffering caused by the cycle of rebirth. Here she is appropriately depicted as a compassionate and beautiful goddess, blessing the viewer with her gentle gaze and merciful smile. She extends her right hand in the gesture of charity, offering help to those in need, while raising her left in front of her heart. Two lotus stalks emerge from her hands and blossom by her shoulders, framing the goddess with a lively symmetrical design.

Green Tara is one of the most widely worshiped deities in Tibet, second in popularity only to Avalokiteshvara. According to a Tibetan myth, she consorted with an emanation of Avalokiteshvara and gave birth to the Tibetan people. As Tibetan Buddhism was favored by the Mongol Yuan rulers, Green Tara's popularity grew significantly in China proper over the course of the dynasty. Dr. Bigler notes that she was one of the three most worshiped Vajrayana deities in Yuan China, along with Mahakala and Manjushri (Before Yongle, Zurich, 2015, p.84).

Obvious stylistic parallels can be drawn between this Green Tara and an important, inscribed Yuan gilt bronze figure of Dharmachakra Manjushri dated to 1305 and held at the Palace Museum, Beijing, affirming an early 14th century date for the present bronze as well. The physiognomy of the two figures bears close resemblance, most notably in the chubby yet slightly squarish face, the thin and narrow lips almost as wide as the nose, and the short and clean-cut hair bangs neatly arranged below the crown. Their sensuous bodies are similarly proportioned, with robust limbs, thin waist, and a faint sway of the hips. The two also share jewelry with prominent inset stones, seen on the double-band bracelets with jeweled leaves, as well as the large round earrings with beaded outer rim enclosing a central stone. The lotus petals on their bases are almost identical, each consisting of a tear-drop inner petal with incised borders and a relatively flat outer petal with a slightly raised tip. Lastly, similar scroll patterns are incised on the hems of their lower garments. While discussing another Yuan dynasty bronze, Dr. Bigler observes that this particular scroll motif was "extremely popular from the early 13th to the late 14th century and can be found on a variety of different media, such as textiles, gold artifacts and on porcelain" (ibid., p.76).

The production of Buddhist images in China took a new turn during the 13th and 14th centuries, driven by the change in political leadership and the co-existence of diverse Buddhist traditions, including Tibetan Buddhism and the Mahayana schools of Chan and Pure Land Buddhism. The new Mongol rulers invited Tibetan and Nepalese artists to the Yuan capital, Dadu, to collaborate with their Chinese counterparts in the imperial workshops. As a result of the artistic inclusiveness of the time, new styles were born in a wide range of mediums.

Incorporating aesthetic traditions of Tibet, Nepal, and China, the present lot exemplifies the cosmopolitan nature of the small corpus of Yuan bronzes. On the one hand, Green Tara's tight-fitting dhoti exhibits Nepalese and Tibetan characteristics, contrasting the prominent folds seen across the legs of figures cast in a Chinese visual idiom. The treatment of her five-leaf crown, large round earrings, and the fan-shaped rosettes above her ears also compare closely to a contemporaneous Green Tara made in Tibet following the Nepalese tradition that is preserved at Mindrolling Monastery (von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Vol.II, Hong Kong, 2003, p.966, no.233A). On the other hand, the full breasts of the Mindrolling Tara are absent from the current example, conforming instead to Chinese aesthetics that favor flat-chested depictions of female deities (see a 14th-century Chinese bronze Marici in Bigler, Before Yongle, Zurich, 2015, pp.34-5, no.5).

Several details of this exemplative Yuan Tara also compare closely to another in the so-called 'Nepalo-Chinese' style, or Yuan court style (ibid., pp.96-9, no.22). The design of their double layered lower garment is almost identical, as is the simplified knot of the necklace at the back of their necks, which may have derived from Pala Indian images of the 11th to 12th century (ibid., p.96).

Published
Robert Bigler, Art and Faith at the Crossroads: Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist Images and Ritual Implements from the 12th to the 15th century, Zurich, 2013, p.48-9, no.16.  
Robert Bigler, Before Yongle: Chinese and Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist Sculpture of the 13th and 14th Centuries, Zurich, 2015, pp.104-7, no.24.

Provenance
Acquired in Germany from a Private European Collection in 2006