A gilt-bronze figure of Vajrasattva, Mark and period of Yongle

Christie's London, 11th December 1973, lot 82.

English Private Collection.

Heather Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art, Warminster, 1975, pl. 52.

Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, pl. 144A.

Vajrasattva, (lit. 'Adamantine Being'), is regarded as both a Buddha and a bodhisattva, who remains in the world for the benefit of the living, and is worshipped through rites of purification. A key figure in two Esoteric Buddhist texts, the Mahavairochana and Vajrashekhara Sutras, Vajrasattva is said to have learnt the Dharma from Mahavairochana Buddha along with esoteric rituals to help achieve this divine ‘Way’. The present figure, with his serene smile, radiates compassion and benevolence. He appears youthful yet regal with his sumptuous crown and jewelry, and a shawl elegantly draped over his shoulders. He is depicted seated in vajraparyankasana on a double lotus pedestal base, the left hand holding a ghanta and the right in a clutching position, wearing a dhoti and jewelled waistband spreading over the rear and leaving the upper body bare but for scarf-draped arms, lotus arm cuffs, bracelets and an elaborate jewelled pectoral, the broad face with almond-shaped eyes in a serene expression with bud-like mouth, framed by ornate wheel-shaped earrings and the hair drawn up into a high chignon behind an eight-leaf diadem, inscribed to the front of the base with the six-character mark Da Ming Yongle nian shi. 

Figures of Vajrasattva are usually depicted holding a vajra (or dorje in Tibetan) in one hand and a ghanta (dril-bu) in the other. While the vajra - presumably once in the figure’s right hand - represents firmness of spirit and spiritual power, its foil, the ghanta bell, is associated with the female aspects of supreme wisdom. Wielding them together in an act of salvation, Vajrasattva is imbued with a calm sense of reassurance and grace.

Finely cast preserving the most intricate details, the present lot is representative of a group of figures made under imperial orders in China during the first half of the fifteenth century. During the Yuan dynasty, the authority of Mongol rulers had become closely associated with the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy and, as a result, their religious practices became associated with Tibetan rituals and ceremonies. Even with the arrival of the Ming dynasty in 1368, the Chinese court continued to maintain a close relationship with the Tibetan Lamas into the fifteenth century. Frequent missions to Tibet were carried out to maintain this relationship with images such as this figure indispensable as political gifts.

Gilt-bronze figures made in the imperial foundries of the Yongle Emperor represent the apogee of Chinese Buddhist sculpture in the Ming dynasty, combining Tibetan and Nepalese tastes with the fine metalwork and intangible elegance of the Chinese tradition. Some fifty-four works bearing a Yongle inscription have been documented in Tibetan monastery collections; a testament to the lavish treatment of Tibetan hierarchs during the reign of the Yongle Emperor; see David Weldon in Visions of Enlightenment: The Speelman Collection of Important Early Ming Buddhist Bronzes, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 10.

Another Yongle reign-marked gilt-bronze figure of Vajrasattva, preserved in the Red Palace, Lhasa, is also missing its vajra, illustrated in Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, pl. 358B. Compare also a closely related example from the collection of the Berti Aschmann Foundation in the Rietberg Museum, illustrated in Helmut Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment: The Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art in the Museum Rietberg Zurich, Zurich, 1995, pl. 22; another from the Speelman Collection, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 7th October 2006, lot 801.

For further examples of Yongle mark and period gilt-bronze figures of Vajrasattva, see two illustrated in Zhongguo zangchuan fojiao diaosu quanji [Compendium of Tibetan Buddhist Sculpture], vol. II, Beijing, 2002, pls 174 and 175, the latter bearing a particularly strong resemblance to the present lot; see also a very similar figure of Yongle mark presumed to be Vajrasattva, illustrated in Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, fig. 146C. Compare also a seated figure of Vajrasattva attributed to the Yuan dynasty, published in Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected in the Qing Palace, Hong Kong, 1992, pl. 57.