A gilt-copper alloy figure of Green Tara, Tibet, 14th century

Sotheby's New York, 22nd March 1989, lot 404.

The finely modeled figure of Green Tara is depicted with her characteristic hand gestures of generosity and blessing and seated in a regal pose with right leg pendent. The sculptural style is Nepalese, seen in the lithe and elegant posture and the rich fire-gilding. The broad, ribbed bangles at the wrist and the three-panel crown set back from the hairline are predominantly Indian Pala period features, suggesting a Tibetan commission made by Newar artists during the period of stylistic transition in Tibet around the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Compare the style of the central crown panel and the gem-set armbands of a fourteenth-century Suvarnamatsya in Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, vol. II, Hong Kong, 2001, no. 261B; the bangles of a circa thirteenth-century Tara, ibid. 261D; and the necklace style of blind settings and gem set central cluster of a circa fourteenth-century Prajnaparamita, ibid. 261E.