A SILVER INLAID COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF TARA


SWAT VALLEY, CIRCA 8TH CENTURYHimalayan Art Resources item no.61965 4 2/3 in. (11.8 cm) high
|斯瓦特 約八世紀 銅錯銀度母像 Seated in 'royal ease' (lalitasana) on her lotus base, with her right hand in varada mudra, Tara offers to grant her devotee's wishes. She wears a patterned lower garment, and a tight-fitting tunic with an inverted u-shaped hem and pendent ends. Tara holds the stem of a lotus in her left hand, a symbol of her divine purity and yielding generosity. Her face is well worn from centuries of propitiation, yet her silver inlaid eyes remain a potent reminder of Tara's supranatural presence and charity. In the 4th and 5th centuries, Swat Valley served as an important regional haven for Buddhism while Huns raided nearby monasteries throughout ancient Gandhara's lush plains. Then, Buddhist bronzes from Swat Valley served as an important artistic and religious link between the former civilization of Gandhara and the Gupta Period of Northern India to the rising states of Kashmir, Gilgit, and Western Tibet. Swat Valley bronzes provide some of the earliest sculptural depictions of Tara. The present lot's stylistic features are matched by other Swat Valley bronzes from the same period. A similar treatment of Tara's face, hair, and drapery is represented in a bronze held in the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology (EA1997.200), and another published in von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, p.97, no.12G. Further examples showing similar tunics are published in Pal, The Arts of Kashmir, 2007, p.72, fig.63 and p.86, fig.85, and Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir, New Delhi, 1975, p.185, no. 69, where the scarf creates a hood-like panel behind the head. Provenance Benny Rustenburg, Lotus Crown Group, Hong Kong, 20 June 2000 Private European Collection