AN INLAID BRONZE FIGURE OF JAMBHALA TIBET, 14TH CENTURY

seated atop a raised platform with short, openwork pillars, the right foot extended and resting atop a kalasha, both hands held in karanamudra, the right hand clutching a bijapuraka fruit, the left hand holding a mongoose disgorging jewels, adorned in beaded jewellery and a scarf around the shoulders, the face with a gentle smile and surmounted by a five-pointed crown with glass lozenges and semi-precious stones, the jatamukata adorned with a flaming jewel finial

Himalayan Art Resources item no. 68314

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2002-2005, on loan.
Arte Buddhista Tibetana: Dei e Demoni dell' Himalaya, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, June-September 2004.
Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2005-2017, on loan.
Casting the Divine: Sculptures of the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2012-2013.
The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2013-2015.

The figure is in very good condition with just several losses to inlaid jewellery and insignificant surface wear.
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Rotund Jambhala, the lord of wealth and abundance, is seated on a lotus pedestal with the right foot extended in bodhisattva posture and holding his identifying accoutrements the bijapuraka fruit and the mongoose. He is adorned in an elegant foliate shawl, with the crown, headdress, earrings, necklace and armlets richly inlaid with semi-precious stones and glass lozenges. The unusual and highly distinctive lotus platform rests atop short, openwork beaded pillars. 

The practice and invocation of Jambhala is found in the Anuttarayoga system in the Guhyasamaja, Hevajra and Chakrasamvara Tantras. His practice is associated with the accumulation of wealth, both spiritual and worldly, and thus his association with the mongoose disgorging jewels. 

Another fourteenth century ungilt figure of Jambhala of the same size in the British Museum (acc. no. 1983,1109.1) from the John H. Barnett Collection has similarly characteristic arched eyebrows; inlaid disk earrings and U-shaped necklace falling to the belly; the broad face and physique; and the highly distinctive floral garland which encirled the shoulder and pools between the feet of the deity.