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

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 3524. A bronze figure of the Medicine Buddha Five dynasties – Liao dynasty | 五代至遼 銅藥師佛坐像.

A bronze figure of the Medicine Buddha Five dynasties – Liao dynasty | 五代至遼 銅藥師佛坐像

Auction Closed

October 12, 12:42 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

A bronze figure of the Medicine Buddha 

Five dynasties – Liao dynasty

五代至遼 銅藥師佛坐像


depicted seated in a posture of meditation with legs in padmasana atop a powerfully cast throne decorated with two rows of overlapping petals, long tresses of hair fall onto the shoulders, a diaphanous robe drapes over his arms and gather at his feet, the hands holding a plain circular alms bowl

h. 8.9 cm

J.J. Lally & Co., New York, September 2006.


藍理捷，紐約，2006年9月

Leopold Swergold, Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes, Aventura, 2014, cat. no. 28.


Leopold Swergold，《Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes》，2014年，圖版28

The figure depicts the Buddha of Medicine in a posture of meditation with legs in padmasana, his hands holding a humble alms bowl. The throne beneath him is well-defined with a stepped cylindrical base surmounted by an open lotus blossom, the overlapping petals each individually articulated. Traces of the original gilt on lacquer can be seen throughout. The figure displays characteristics of the Five Dynasties period, but is more likely to date to the Liao period, whose emperors were devout Buddhists, and under whose reign religious art flourished. The Buddhist imagery of this period fused Tang dynasty styles, which appealed to the bold aesthetic favored by the Northern nomadic people, with the refined sensibility of Song dynasty artistic expression. A Liao dynasty seated gilt-bronze seated figure of the Amithaba Buddha with similar posture, drapery, and throne is found in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, object number 46-84.