A large gilt-bronze figure of Manjushri, Tibet or Nepal, 12th century

Acquired in Paris in the 1990s (by repute).

The present figure of Manjushri is representative of an early style of rendering bodhisattva images in Tibet, where Newar artists were active craftsmen who intermarried with Tibetans and carried forward artistic traditions and particular techniques for centuries. 

The figure can be identified as the bodhisattva Manjushri, based on the small religious text which sits upon the lotus flanking his proper left shoulder. The central petal of the figure’s large diadem exhibits an effigy of the historical buddha, Shakyamuni, performing the dharmachakra mudra or teaching gesture–which is highly appropriate considering this bodhisattva’s direct association with Tantric Buddhist wisdom. 

While this sculpture appears to have been created for a Tibetan environment it is unclear if both Nepalese and Tibetan artists were at work on this bronze, given the less fluid tribangha represented here, which Tibetan artists often copied well but not masterfully during this early period known as the 'Second Propogation.'

This figure of Manjushri, although evidently a Buddhist figure, is useful to compare to a figure of Indra in the Rubin Museum of Art Collection (accession no. C2006.71.8; HAR 65761), which is aptly dated to the 12th century. The three-petal crown, the prominent yajnopavita or ‘sacred cord’ (which Nepalese artists often rendered in an elaborate fashion as derived from earlier Indian examples of bodhisattvas), and the high-copper-content alloy and the evident mercury gilding point to Nepalese/Newar craftsmanship.