著录:出版 借展于芝加哥艺术博物馆, 1996至2022年 (293.1996) P. Pal, 《A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection》, 芝加哥, 1997年, 页108及301, 图录编号131 喜马拉雅艺术资源 (Himalayan Art Resources), 编号24760 拍品描述:展览 芝加哥艺术博物馆, 「A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection」, 1997年8月2日至10月26日，图录编号131 来源 William H. Wolff, Inc., 纽约, 1972年11月9日 詹姆斯及玛丽莲・阿尔斯多夫珍藏, 芝加哥 This rare and early bronze is an important example of the Nepalese metal-casting tradition during the Licchavi period (circa 5th-8th century CE), and illustrates the cultural influence of the Indian Gupta style on the art of early Nepal. Originally identified as dating to the Indian Gupta dynasty (early fourth-late sixth century CE) when it first entered the Alsdorf Collection, the present work indeed displays many of the trademark characteristics of the late Gupta style famously established in northern India at sites such as Mathura or Sarnath. The remains of gilding in the recessed areas indicate the figure was at one point resplendently gilt, like almost all other Nepalese images from the same period. The present work undoubtedly draws its influence from a corpus of bronze Buddha images from Northern India that show a consistency in style and iconography, and which have been dated to around the sixth century CE. Examples of this Gupta corpus include a bronze figure of Buddha, dated to the late sixth or early seventh century in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 69.222), illustrated by U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 216, fig. 45A; a bronze figure of Buddha in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, illustrated by P. Pal in Light of Asia: Buddha Sakyamuni in Asian Art, Los Angeles, 1984, p. 201, cat. no. 85; and a bronze figure of Buddha jointly in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum (acc. nos. IS.3-2004 and 2004,0401.1), illustrated by I. Alsop in The Bronze Standing Buddha in Gupta India and Licchavi Nepal, Arts of Asia, November-December 2020, p. 64, fig. 5. Like the Gupta bronzes, the present Buddha stands in a pronounced contrapposto with his weight on the proper right leg, and with the left bent slightly with the knee forward. The form of the body is soft, with rounded thighs and hips, a slight protuberance of the belly, with the pinched waist flaring out to broad shoulders and muscular upper arms. All is covered by a diaphanous sanghati, with a circular hem at the base of the neck, and rippling folds that fall from the wrists to the garment’s hem above the ankles. In contrast to many of the noted Gupta examples, the sanghati is rendered without cascading folds down the center of the torso. The right hand, a later replacement, is lowered in a variation of vitarkamudra, although it was likely originally held in varadamudra, the gesture of giving. The left hand, also possibly replaced, is held raised towards the chest in vitarkamudra. Such a configuration of the hands follows closely other Nepalese examples, such as a gilt-copper image of Buddha, dated to the eighth to tenth centuries, in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums (acc. no. 2011.2) illustrated by I. Alsop in The Bronze Standing Buddha in Gupta India and Licchavi Nepal, Arts of Asia, November-December 2020, p. 75, fig. 24, or a copper image of Buddha in the John and Berthe Ford Collection at the Walters Art Museum, illustrated by P. Pal in Desire and Devotion: Art from India, Nepal and Tibet in the John and Berthe Ford Collection, p. 188, cat. no. 104. Compare, also, with a small copper image of Buddha illustrated by U. von Schroeder in Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 305, fig. 74G. The Gupta examples, in contrast, display the right hand raised in abhayamudra and the left holding the folds of the robe. The face of the present work follows the Gupta convention for representing the Buddha, with a curved, aquiline nose, and large, almost bulbous, heavy-lidded eyes below the tight snailshell curls of the hair. Indeed, the head of the present figure, which tapers from the wide top of the head down to a narrow chin, roughly corresponding to an acorn shape, more closely resembles the Gupta examples such as the Met or LACMA examples, than it does the Nepalese works such as the Walters or Harvard Buddha that have a more narrow and straight shape of the head.