A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF A LAMA TIBET, CIRCA 17TH CENTURYA GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF A LAMATIBET, CIRCA 17TH CENTURYHimalayan Art Resources item no. 90810 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm) high西藏 約十七世紀 銅鎏金喇嘛像This unidentified portrait of a lama was likely a translator and teacher during his lifetime, based on the teaching gesture (vitarka mudra) displayed in his right hand while cradling a flaming jewel in his left palm. The arrangement of his separately cast copper hat turned to the side is typically reserved for high translators (lotsawas) and is shared by a number of portraits, particularly that of an unidentified translator in the Palace Museum Beijing (HAR 9514) that shares the same arrangement of the robes and the single row of lotus petals beneath a convex platform. Also see other images of lamas wearing a similarly styled flat-brimmed hat, one sold at Sotheby's, New York, 16 March 2016, lot 1339, and another with stouter proportions in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (HAR 35003).Published:David Weldon & Jane Casey, Faces of Tibet: The Wesley and Carolyn Halpert Collection, Carlton Rochell Ltd., New York, 2003, no. 48.Provenance:The Wesley and Carolyn Halpert CollectionSotheby's, New York, 24 March 2004, lot 73The Rapoport Collection, New York