A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF SITATAPATRA
DOLONNOR, INNER MONGOLIA, 18TH CENTURY Himalayan Art Resources item no.16880 26 cm (10 1/4 in.) high
注脚
銅鎏金大白傘蓋佛母像多倫諾爾 內蒙古 十八世紀Sitatapatra, a female protector deity who emanates from Shakyamuni's?ushnisha, sits gracefully with a slight twist to the right. Her facial features are well-defined, flanked by ornate pendulous earrings dangling to her shoulders. She wears a very high five-pointed crown inset with an impressive array of turquoise stones upon her head. A highly unusual and charming feature of the bronze is the diminutive wrathful dakini brandishing a sword that accompanies Sitatapatra affixed to the base's lower right. Stylistically, this bronze's larger scale, heavy regalia, and tall lotus base are hallmarks of those produced for the Qing Empire at workshops in Dolonnor, Inner Mongolia. Compare an 18th-century Dolonnor figure of Syamatara sold at Bonhams, Hong Kong, 2 October 2018, lot 89. Dolonnor bronzes were made to populate a rapid expansion of Buddhist temples throughout the Qing Empire's borderlands in Central Asia. Therefore, it is perhaps no coincidence that Sitatapatra was a popular subject in this context, given that the Mongol Yuan dynasty worshipped her for her ability to destroy enemies and overcome disasters (Lopez Jr, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton, 2014). Provenance Private Collection, Bloomington, Indiana, before 1992