17th centurySeated in vajrasana with the hands held in dhyanamudra, with wide shoulders and relatively small but naturalistically modelled head with a soft benevolent expression, with high arching brows above heavy-lidded eyes and long triangular nose above a small but full fleshy mouth, his hair tightly knotted and rising to a small domed usnisa, large pendulous ears frame the head, his robes draped over one shoulder, the other exposed, the hems delicately cast and incised with scrolling lotus, a pleated inner garment decorated with three round jewels in the Chintamani pattern, which also falls in folds between his legs, his fifth large toe on each up-turned foot slightly splayed from the other grouped toes, seated on a double lotus base cast with cloud motifs in the early Ming dynasty style beneath a beaded edge, all under a thick gilding, no base panel. 6 1/2in (16.5cm) high,转到 Chinese Works of Art Go
注脚:十七世紀 鎏金銅佛坐像For another gilt-bronze figure of Buddha Sakyamuni of similar size, see James Spencer, Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1993, pp. 38-39, no. 12. The figure is less slender in the middle torso than ours but the wide shoulders certainly bear comparison as does the treatment of the lotus base. In our figure, the petals continue around the entire circumference, unlike the Chang Foundation example.Buddha Sakyamuni was the founder of Buddhism and according to tradition he lived from circa 565 to 485 BCE in an area which now lies on the border of India and Nepal. He was known as Siddartha of the Sakya clan. The term 'muni' means holy man, ascetic, saint, sage, and is also interpreted as benevolent, kind and charitable. Thus Sakyamuni means "The Benevolent Holy Man of the Sakya clan."In Mahayana Buddhism, which prevailed in China, Buddha Sakyamuni was the fourth of a series of five Manjusri or earthly Buddhas and before his death he foretold the coming of the fifth earthly Buddha, Maitreya.For a larger lacquered wood figure bearing very similar facial features particularly the strong triangular nose and also with the wide shoulders preferred during the Kangxi era, see Sotheby's, New York, Footsteps of the Buddha: Masterworks from across the Buddhist World, 3 September 2013, lot 27.