Rare sculpture d'Avalokitesvara Padmapani en bronze doré Népal, fin du XVIIE siècle

assis en rajalilasana sur une double base lotiforme, son bras droit appuyé sur son genou droit légèrement relevé, à sa droite une fleur de lotus, portant sur l'épaule la peau de biche qui le caractérise, le visage à l'expression sereine, coiffé d'un haut chignon agrémenté d'une image de Bouddha, la base non scellée

Acquired in Denmark in the 1950s.

The figure and base are cast separately. Together they are very heavy. The base is open. There are some light stress cracks visible at the back of the base and there are some areas where the rich gilding is a little worn. The small finial at the top of the top knot is missing. The stem of the lotus flower shows a tear to the metal and a second lotus flower that would have been next to the exisiting one is missing. The figure is beautifully modelled with great attention to physical detail. The casting and modulation of the figure is much crisper than the catalogue illustration suggests.
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The commanding image of Avalokiteshvara Padmapani seated in rajalilasana, the elegant attitude of royal ease, embodies the grace and sensuous qualities of the finest Nepalese art. A very similar gilt bronze dated in its Newari inscription to samvat 812 (1691 CE) depicts the Hindu god Shiva Chandrashekhara, see Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, pl. 103F. The sculpture of Shiva and the Padmapani are virtually indistinguishable but for ancillary iconographic elements, demonstrating the dexterity with which Newar artists executed commissions from local Hindu patrons and Buddhist patrons both at home and internationally. Indeed certain sculptural details may indicate that the Padmapani was a foreign commission, either Tibetan or Chinese. The separately cast lotus base has provision for the insertion of a plate to seal the consecration chamber, in line with Tibetan Buddhist practice; the style of the lotus pedestal with sharply upturned petals is comparable to a seventeenth century Newar style Tibetan Padmasambhava in the Berti Aschmann Collection, see Helmut Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment, Museum Rietberg Zurich, 1995, cat.no. 120; stylistic similarities are observed on numerous bronzes made at the Qing court in the Nepalese manner, such as necklace jewels and lotus base of a Shakyamuni Buddha in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see Palace Museum (ed), Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected in the Qing Palace, Beijing, 1992, p. 64, cat.no. 38; the billowing scarf ends and jewellery elements of an Ushnishavijaya, Chakrasamvara and Guhyasamaja in the Palace Museum, ibid, cat.nos. 63, 64, 65; the separate construction and method of attachment of the lotus flower is recognised in a circa seventeenth century Newar style gilt bronze Vajravarahi in the Potala, Lhasa, see Jeung-hee Lee-Kalisch (ed.), Tibet: Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern, München, 2006, p. 354, pl. 59:1.

Nepalese artists have been employed in Tibet from at least the era of the Tibetan Empire (630-850) as evidenced by the seventh or eighth century carved wood lintels and doorways in the Lhasa Jokhang, and in China from at least the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) when the Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan (1215-1294) famously appointed the Newar prodigy Aniko (1245-1306) as head of all artisan classes at court. This important gilt copper Padmapani reflects the continuum of Nepalese international artistic influence throughout Tibet and China in the Qing Dynasty.