
Jing Wen
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Sold for €17,850 inc. premium
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A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF VAJRASATTVA
WEST TIBET, 13TH/14TH CENTURY
藏西 十三/十四世紀 金剛薩埵銅像
Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s
The bronze depicts Vajrasattva with his most popular iconography, seated while holding a vajra before his chest and a bell by his left hip. As the Primordial Buddha, Vajrasattva represents the essence of the Buddhahood and is frequently invoked for a rite of purification before undertaking most Tibetan Buddhist tantric instruction.
The broad, flat shape of the lotus petals around the base, and the way in which the scarf framing the figure is cast with supporting rods, indicates this image was cast in West Tibet within the 13th or 14th century. For comparison, see a Ratnasambhava in the Zimmerman Collection, published in von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, p. 180, no. 34A, and a standing Avalokiteshvara with similarly prominent fanning crown ribbons behind the temples in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2003.339).