A RARE TIBETAN PALA-STYLE FIGURE OF MANJUSHRI

A RARE TIBETAN PALA-STYLE FIGURE OF MANJUSHRI
C.17TH CENTURY OR EARLIER

The bodhisattva with his right hand lowered and open-palmed in a boon-granting gesture (varadamudra), the right hand with his thumb and forefinger touching in a gesture of teaching or discussion (vitarka mudra), wearing a sash and a beaded sacred cord (rajnopavita) across the torso, with branches of the ashoka tree at his left shoulder, and seated at ease (lalitasana) on a double lotus pedestal, 4.3kg, 21.4cm.

Provenance: purchased Christie’s London, 26th July 1990, lot 155.

The style of the statue recalls the classical eastern Indian Pala period (8th-12th century) traditions that were revived in Tibet as homage to Indian sculpture from the homeland of Buddhism. Compare the seated posture, hand gestures and jewellery style, especially the low three-panel crown and jewelled armbands, of an 11th or 12th century eastern Indian Manjushri in a private collection, see Jeff Watt, www. himalayanart.org/items/9438, and compare the typically Pala style of the off-centred upper and lower petals of the lotus base with a Pala Tara in the Ford Collection; cf. Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, p.283, fig.69E. The bases of Pala statues are often left empty like this example. This figure and the base are probably solid cast.

十七世紀或更早 西藏仿帕拉風格文殊菩薩坐像
來源：倫敦蘇富比1990年7月26日·編號155。