A SMALL CHINESE BRONZE VOTIVE FIGURE OF BUDDHA

Northern Wei Dynasty

Seated in dhyanasana with hands held in dhyanamudra, cast in relief against a flame-shaped mandorla and resting atop a two-legged plinth, the Buddha's head framed by a halo of overlapping lotus petals encircled by a ring of fan-shaped medallions enclosing small dhyani Buddhas, the reverse cast with a seated Buddha flanked by bodhisattvas above a register of eight dhyani Buddhas, below a peaked enclosure flanked by deities,

10.5cm high, 180g

Provenance: Previously in the collection of the Bavarian State Museum of Ethnology, by repute, with old paper collection label to base that reads 'Lt. Völkerk - Museum München'.

北魏 銅釋佛坐像

來源：Bavarian State Museum of Ethnology, 慕尼黑, Lt. Völkerk - Museum München 標籤。

A related figure is housed in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and is illustrated in Marylin Martin Rhie, Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, vol. 2, Leiden, 2002, figs. 2.71a-b.

A closely related votive figure was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, Chinese Art Through The Eye Of Sakamoto Gorō: Early Buddhist Bronzes, 5th October 2016, lot 3208.

Note: The period between 386 and 535 is referred to as the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The Northern Wei Dynasty, ruled by the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe, was politically-separated yet culturally-connected to their Daoist neighbours to the south. The Northern Wei rulers were ardent supporters of Buddhism, and utilised the religion in an effort to maintain ideological and social control over the population. The dhyani Buddhas found on this small votive figure were celestial Buddhas that were visualised during meditation, the word derived from the Sanskrit word meaning ‘meditation’.

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