.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This remarkable and rare gilt-copper figure of Vajravarahi is executed with the greatest possible detail for a sculpture of its size. The powerful deity’s sharp teeth and sow’s head are clearly articulated, as are the features of her skull crown, beaded festoons, severed heads, petite fingers and toes. The distinct mode of craftsmanship indicates that this was created in the Karnali Basin (what is now Western Nepal) during the reign of the Khasa Malla dynasty which spanned from sometime in the twelfth to the mid-fourteenth century.
Scholarship on this very distinct style of sculpture is limited, but extant examples compiled by Ian Alsop and Gautama Vajracharya demonstrate a style distinguished by its ornamentation, petite yet weighty physiognomy, and extravagant gilding. The figure’s bodies are modeled with compact, yet graceful features. More particularly, the high arch of Vajravarahi’s eye-brows, which nearly meet the hairline, are shared among female figures attributed to the Khasa Malla Kingdom, such as the Prajnaparamita in the Pritzker Collection, illustrated by Ian Alsop in “The Metal Sculpture of the Khasa Malla Kingdom,” Orientations, June 1994, fig. 10, and a gilt copper alloy image of Green Tara in The Walters Art Museum (acc. no. 2002, 54.3012). The Pritzker example and the current work also share the unusual feature of a painted red base.
Little is known about the Khasa Malla Kingdom aside from the insights derived from the evidence of artistic patronage and their occasional raids of the Kathmandu Valley. The consensus among scholars is that this devoutly Buddhist Kingdom was born from a tribe led into the Karnali Basin by their first king, Nagaraja in the twelfth century, and that the kings who succeeded him maintained a positive relationship with the Western Tibetan subjects under his control, as evidenced by gifts to Tibetan temples. The present sculpture is an exemplary piece of this short-lived kingdom.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24491.
Scholarship on this very distinct style of sculpture is limited, but extant examples compiled by Ian Alsop and Gautama Vajracharya demonstrate a style distinguished by its ornamentation, petite yet weighty physiognomy, and extravagant gilding. The figure’s bodies are modeled with compact, yet graceful features. More particularly, the high arch of Vajravarahi’s eye-brows, which nearly meet the hairline, are shared among female figures attributed to the Khasa Malla Kingdom, such as the Prajnaparamita in the Pritzker Collection, illustrated by Ian Alsop in “The Metal Sculpture of the Khasa Malla Kingdom,” Orientations, June 1994, fig. 10, and a gilt copper alloy image of Green Tara in The Walters Art Museum (acc. no. 2002, 54.3012). The Pritzker example and the current work also share the unusual feature of a painted red base.
Little is known about the Khasa Malla Kingdom aside from the insights derived from the evidence of artistic patronage and their occasional raids of the Kathmandu Valley. The consensus among scholars is that this devoutly Buddhist Kingdom was born from a tribe led into the Karnali Basin by their first king, Nagaraja in the twelfth century, and that the kings who succeeded him maintained a positive relationship with the Western Tibetan subjects under his control, as evidenced by gifts to Tibetan temples. The present sculpture is an exemplary piece of this short-lived kingdom.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24491.