A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF TARA


QIANLONG PERIOD (1735-1796)Seated on a later Chinese wood stand.Himalayan Art Resources item no.61661 18 cm (7 in.) high
|乾隆時期（1735-1796）度母銅坐像This very specific representation of Tara was likely developed at imperial workshops under the Qianlong Emperor. It borrows from, but also amends the Indian Pala style, representative of a genre of Buddhist sculpture reflecting the Qianlong Emperor's perceived enhancing of archaic styles.Similar examples of this type are in the Qing Palace Collection and the Yonghegong (Zangchuan Fojiao Zaoxiang, Hong Kong, 2008, p.242, no.231, and Niu, Buddhist Statues in Yonghegong, Beijing, 2001, p.31, respectively). See another (misattributed) in Kramrisch, The Art of Nepal, New York, 1964, p.131, no.17. Compare elements of the Pala style with an 11th-century Tara in published in von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, vol.1, Hong Kong, 2001, pp.240-1, no.73B-C). ProvenanceJames Defelice, London, late 1960s