Footnotes

A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA
KHASA MALLA, 13TH/14TH CENTURY

卡薩馬拉 十三/十四世紀 銅鎏金釋迦牟尼像

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s

This grand image of the Buddha is one of only a handful of large bronzes attributed to the Khasa Malla kingdom, whose territory comprised parts of Western Nepal and Tibet between the 12th and 14th centuries. The juxtaposition of this Buddha's warm, quiet demeanor and his formidable, robust physique strikes an accomplished balance conveying benign yet supreme authority.

Although the mysterious kingdom of the Khasa Mallas was known to Western scholars from epigraphical sources by the 1950s, it was Ian Alsop's pioneering research on a peculiar gilt-bronze female figure in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C. (1986.23M) that spurred awareness of the Khasa Mallas' visual culture (Alsop, "The Metal Sculpture of the Khasa Malla Kingdom" in Singer & Denwood (eds.), Tibetan Art, Towards a Definition of Style, 1997, pp. 68-79). Subsequently, a growing number of objects have been assigned to their avid promotion of Buddhism, whose aesthetic was informed by prevalent styles circulating in neighboring kingdoms and the lands the Khasa Mallas controlled or raided. For example, numerous features of the present sculpture show clear borrowings from the Malla kingdom, centered in the Kathmandu Valley, including the thick beading running along the robe's 'rice-grain' hemline, the floral medallions tucked behind the Buddha's ears, his beaked nose, and the fishtail sash draped over his left shoulder. Compare these features with three Malla Buddha sculptures sold at Sotheby's, New York, 25 March 1999, lot 39; Sotheby's, New York, 1 April 2005, lot 52; and Christies, New York, 13 September 2017, lot 620.

Chief among the diagnostic traits that can identify a work from the Khasa Malla kingdom is the representation of the joints of each finger, displayed in this Shakyamuni's right hand, lowered in the gesture of "calling the Earth to witness" (bhumisparsha mudra). The 'rice-grain' pattern, an inlaid turquoise urna in the shape of a teardrop, and the manner in which his eyebrows terminate at the nasal bridge are other features found among Khasa Malla sculptures. All are shared by a Buddha of similar scale in the Rubin Museum of Art (C2006.24.1), and two other large Khasa Malla Buddhas sold at Bonhams, Hong Kong, 2 December 2020, lot 1010, and Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2018, lot 3019.