A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF CROWNED BUDDHA


TIBET, CIRCA 16TH CENTURYHimalayan Art Resources item no.61633 20.5 cm (8 in.) high
|西藏 約十六世纪 銅鎏金寶冠佛像This image can be interpreted to represent both Akshobhya, assuming it was part of a set of Five Presiding Buddhas, and Crowned Shakyamuni, assuming it was the central element of its ensemble. While Shakyamuni's renunciation of his royal birth is in opposition to him being represented with a crown, Bautze-Picron has outlined the coalescence of Indian political, devotional, and philosophical developments that resulted in Shakyamuni's spiritual authority being emphasised with regalia by the end of the first millenium CE (Bautze-Picron, The Bejewlled Buddha from India to Burma, New Delhi, 2010.) A similar example sold at Christie's, Amsterdam, 21 November 2001, lot 130 shows comparable treatment of the robe, crown, and side ribbons.ProvenanceJoseph Gelpy, London, 1970s