A copper alloy figure of Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi, Tibet, 17th / 18th century | 西藏 十七 / 十八世紀 銅合金勝樂金剛與金剛亥母雙修像

The sculpture of Chakrasamvara is cast with four faces and twelve hands holding the skin of a flayed elephant in his uppermost hands, and ritual implements including a skull cup, a double-sided drum, a noose, a flaying knife, and the head of Brahma with four faces, standing in an athletic posture in union with his consort Vajravarahi, their feet trampling the Brahmanical deities Bhairava and Kalaratri. The tiered foot of the lotus pedestal evokes the eastern Indian Pala style that was much copied for Tibetan and Chinese commissions from the seventeenth century onwards. Compare the sculptural style of a similarly un-gilded Chakrasamvara in the Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art at the Museum Rietberg Zürich, which was created by Nepalese craftsmen for Tibetan or Chinese patrons in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, see Helmut Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment, Zurich, 1995, cat. no. 112.