
Jing Wen
Cataloguer
This auction has ended. View lot details


Sold for €19,125 inc. premium
Our Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Cataloguer

International Director

International Specialist

Head of Sale, Specialist
A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF SHADBHUJA MAHAKALA
QING DYNASTY, 18TH/19TH CENTURY
清 十八/十九世紀 銅鎏金六臂大黑天像
Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s
Shadbhuja Mahakala erupts into a flurry of motion, his principal hands clutching a chopper and blood-filled skull cup (kapala) while he leans atop the trampled body of Vinayaka, the Creator of Obstacles. After the Gelugpa order swore an allegiance to the Manchu emperors of the Qing empire, devotional images of their chief protector, the six-armed form of Mahakala, became widespread in China and Mongolia. For other 18th-century examples of this wrathful deity, see a figure in The Art Institute of Chicago (1924.120), and another sold at Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2018, lot 3054.