A COPPER FIGURE OF KRISHNA YAMARI


TIBET, 12TH/13TH CENTURYHimalayan Art Resources item no.68327 6 1/4 in. (16 cm) high
|西藏 十二/十三世紀 黑閻魔敵銅像 The distinctive early Tibetan bronze depicts Krishna Yamari standing victoriously astride a buffalo with his right hand aloft. Krishna Yamari's countenance is semi-wrathful: still handsome, not fanged, and with flowers in his hair, but also with furrowed brow and snakes for jewelry; his body is strong and supple, and not gargantuan. The hilt of the sword he once brandished remains in his raised right hand, and his left shows the gesture of warding off evil tarjarni mudra. He wears a tiger skin across his waist, and a sacred cord slack across his bare torso. The buffalo beneath him is remarkably spirited and almost appears as if it is about to stand up, while Krishna Yamari looks perfectly poised to mitigate his balance and be transported on the buffalo's back. Yamari is a popular meditational deity (yidam) in Tibetan Buddhism, which has three main forms and associated literature: Raktayamari, Vajrabhairava, and Krishna Yamari. There are abundant variations within these three forms, most all of them vivid and exotic. The form of Krishna Yamari depicted by this bronze is rare and conforms within a set of variations within different tradition between the 12th and 14th centuries. Another bronze of Krishna Yamari of about the same period shows him with six arms and astride a moving buffalo (Heller, Early Himalayan Sculpture, Oxford, 2008, p.137, no.46; HAR 35036). By date and style, this sculpture is related to a bronze figure of Vajrapani sold at Bonhams, New York, 17 March 2014, lot 3. Informative comparisons can be made with other early and powerful representations of Buddhist deities, such as a 9th-century Vajrapurusha in the Norton Simon Museum and a 10th-century Padmataka in the Jokhang, Lhasa (see, Pal, Art of the Himalayas and China, Pasadena, 2003, p.74, no.46; and von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculpture in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, p.473, nos.147B & 149A, respectively). A 10th-century deity in a more conventional pose shares similar modeling of the body and adornments (Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure, Chicago, 2003, p.33, no.9). Cast in an alloy rich in copper, the present bronze is dense in the hand and has a beautiful, glossy chocolate brown patina. Exhibited Casting the Divine: Sculptures of the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2012–13) Provenance The Nyingjei Lam Collection On loan to the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2005-2019