
Jing Wen
Cataloguer
This auction has ended. View lot details
Sold for €2,550 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

Global Head of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

International Director

International Specialist

Head of Sale, Specialist
A BRASS FIGURE OF VISHVARUPA
NEPAL, 19TH CENTURY
尼泊爾 十九世紀 維斯瓦鲁帕銅像
This brass figure likely represents the cosmic, universal form of Vishnu as Vishvarupa, accompanied here by his female consort. During the Late Malla period, representations of Hindu and Buddhist deities with a multitude of arms and heads served as visual aids for teachers who sought to clarify the complex systems of esoteric meditational practices to their disciples.
See a stone figure bearing similar attributes but without a consort, published in Grewenig and Rist, eds., Buddha - 2000 Years of Buddhist Art: 232 Masterpieces, Völklingen, 2016, pp. 346-7, no. 146, as well as a figure of Chakrasamvara as Vishvarupa Mahasamvara, published in Huntington and Bangdel, The Circle of Bliss, 2003, pp. 282-3, no. 77.
Provenance:
Alain Presencer, UK, 2000s