STATUETTE DE BOUDDHA EN ALLIAGE DE CUIVRE DORÉTIBET, XVIIIE SIÈCLEHimalayan Art Resources item no. 3302342.5 cm (16 3/4 in.) highProvenance: A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF BUDDHATIBET, 18TH CENTURY西藏 十八世紀 銅鎏金阿彌陀佛像Amitabha is arguably one of the most popular Buddhist deities to be worped in both the Himalayas and the Asian continent, second only to the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. His popularity stems from the proliferation of Mahayana sutras of which many are devoted to him.Of impressive scale and volume, Amitabha is rendered in his simplest form without ornamentation, donning thenirmanakaya ('body form') of Buddha in the most basic representation of his robe.Its fish-tail pleat, but otherwise invisible hemline, echoes the Tibetan 13th/14th-century interpretation of the classic Pala style. See a 12th century image of Shakyamuni in the Tsuglakang, Lhasa, published in von Schroeder,Buddhist Bronzes in Tibet, Vol. II, 2001, p. 1095, no. 282D.Supported by a single row of plump lotus petals, this figure would have been set on a separately cast throne or a niche representing a large tree or palace within the Western Heaven of Sukhavati.For a closely dated Shakyamuni image with similar proportions, face, and lotus base, see von Schroeder,Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, p. 457, no. 126B.Provenance:Private Collection, USAAcquired in Kathmandu, early 1960s, New York, 14 September 2015, lot 61