Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt-Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection
Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt-Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection
A magnificent inscribed gilt-bronze votive figure of Padmapani Eastern Wei dynasty, dated to the second year of Wuding period (in accordance with 544) | 東魏武定二年 鎏金銅蓮華手觀音立像
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October 12, 12:42 PM GMT
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5,000,000 - 7,000,000 HKD
Lot Details
Description
A magnificent inscribed gilt-bronze votive figure of Padmapani
Eastern Wei dynasty, dated to the second year of Wuding period (in accordance with 544)
東魏武定二年 鎏金銅蓮華手觀音立像
cast as a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva Padmapani depicted standing sturdily against a flame-shaped mandorla bordered with flames on a domed base supported on a four-legged plinth, the majestic figure depicted bending his right elbow and holding a long undulating stem extending upward and bearing a large lotus bud, clad in a dhoti cascading in folds over the knees with a long scarf draped over the shoulders and upper arms, the left hand rendered holding one billowing end of the scarf, the serene expression framed by a crown and a circular halo of radiating petals on the mandorla, the reverse of the mandorla incised with a Buddha seated on a lotus base against a mandorla, the splayed right side and reverse of the plinth with a dedicatory inscription dated to the twentieth day of the eleventh month of the second year of the Wuding period (in accordance with 544), which can be translated as 'Guo Shantan from Quyang patronising a figure'
銘文：
武定二年十一月廿日故記上曲陽縣人郭政歎造像一區
h. 16.8 cm
Collection of Sato Gengen (1888-1963).
Collection of Sakamoto Gorō (1923-2016).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5th October 2016, lot 3212.
佐藤玄々（1888-1963年）收藏
坂本五郎（1923-2016年）收藏
香港蘇富比2016年10月5日，編號3212
Beatrice Chan, 'Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston', Arts of Asia, January/February 2018, pp. 58-65.
Beatrice Chan，〈Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston〉，《Arts of Asia》，2018年1至2月，頁58-65
This extremely rare gilt-bronze figure depicts the Bodhisattva Padmapani, an emanation of Avalokiteshvara. The inscription dates it to the Eastern Wei dynasty, which ruled northern China from 534 to 550 after the disintegration of the Northern Wei (386-534). Although it still retains strong stylistic influences from India, the treatment of the Eastern Wei Padmapani has become much more sinicized than Northern Wei examples, with less distinct Gandharan influences on key features of the sculpture, such as the drapery. Where Northern Wei figures utilize the Indian mode of representation with graceful curvilinear contours, lithe body, swaying hips and gently tilted head, the current figure stands tall and straight. It is an extremely fine sculpture, with an intricately incised design of the Buddha on the reverse. Another gilt-bronze figure of Padmapani, dated to 543, in the Tokyo National Museum, is illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 117. See also an Eastern Wei gilt-bronze figure of Maitreya, dated to 536, formerly in the collection of Duanfang (1861-1911) and now in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadephia (accession no. C355.1), illustrated by Osvald Siren, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, New York, 1925, pl. 158. Another similar example of a Northern Wei gilt-bronze Padmapani can be found in the Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Izumi, Japan, illustrated in Rikuchou Jidai No Kondoubutsu [Gilt-bronze Buddhist figures from the Six Dynasties], Izumi, 1991, cat. no. 48. For another similar depiction, see the Harvard Art Museums, bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, accession no. 1943.53.81.
此尊立像為鎏金銅蓮華手觀音，乃觀音化現之一。依銘文，知為東魏武定二年造。北魏（386-534年）瓦解後，東魏建朝，於534-550年間統治華北。東魏蓮華手觀音造像雖存印度風格，然漢化程度較北魏更進一步，原犍陀羅影響淡去，如衣紋等處。北魏造像效法印度，線條曼麗，腰身婀娜，斜首微傾，反觀此尊，則直立挺拔。論工藝，亦屬卓絕，背光反側線刻坐佛一尊。比一鎏金銅蓮華手觀音，543年造，藏東京國立博物館，錄於《龍泉集芳》，東京，1976年，圖版117。另比一東魏鎏金銅彌勒佛，536年造，端方（1861-1911年）舊藏，現存費城賓夕法尼亞大學考古學與人類學博物館（編號C355.1），見喜龍仁，《Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century》，紐約，1925年，圖版158。再比較一北魏鎏金銅蓮華手觀音，日本和泉市久保惣記念美術館藏，錄於《六朝時代の金銅仏》，和泉市，1991年，編號48。仍有一例相似，存哈佛藝術博物館，Grenville L. Winthrop 捐贈，編號1943.53.81。