A TIBETAN BRONZE FIGURE OF AMITAYUS WESTERN OR CENTRAL TIBET 13TH/14TH CENTURY seated in padmasana his hands in dhyana mudra wearing elaborate five-leaf crown floral earrings and multiple necklaces with long scrolling hair falling on his shoulders and tall chignon with opening bud finial his arms with kirtimukha bazubands and billowing scarf on either side his eyes inlaid with silver his lips with copper modern stand 34cm high approx. Provenance: Private Collection UK. Acquired around 1997. The prominent lips and rounded facial features show how enduring the influence of Gupta styles from central and Northern India many centuries earlier continued to have strong influence on Buddhist art as it spread North and East beyond the boundaries of India itself. A bronze figure of Avalokitesvara from the Swat Valley dating from the 7th century in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 2012 247) represents an important stage in the process and its plump rounded body with copper and silver inlay underlines its connection with our bronze. The metal in this Amitayus is cast quite thinly and this links it to other images of similar date such as a figure of Vajrapani in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Gilmore Fort in the USA (Marilyn Rhie and Robert Thurmann Wisdom and Compassion New York 1991 no.55 p.190). In the same vein is a figure of Vajrasattva in the Newark Museum albeit with rather more emphatically Tibetan features (op.cit. no.131 p.331). The use of silver and copper inlay in the generally ungilded bronzes of this period is characeristic of the style.