Provenance:
Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Frank W. Neustatter, acquired in 1971
Sotheby's, New York, March 23, 2000, no. 28
European Private Collection
Published:
Gerald James Larson, Pratapaditya Pal, and Rebecca P. Gowen, In Her Image: The Great Goddess in Indian Asia and The Madonna in Christian Culture, UCSB Art Museum, University of California, 1980, p. 71, cat. no. 38
Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, pp. 268-269, pl. 62b
The seated posture (vajraparyankasana) with the right hand extended in a gesture of generosity (varada mudra) and the raised left hand holding the stem of an utpala flower identify the goddess as White Tara, worshipped by Buddhists as bestower of longevity. The lustrous gilt-copper image is inlaid with silver to enhance the eyes, urna, a string of pearls at her neck, and the broad bangles at her wrists, and large settings are mounted with turquoise in the armbands, crown, necklace pendant, and flowers at the shoulder. The eastern Indian tradition of embellishing gilt-copper statues with silver inlay and inset colored stones was conceived during the Pala period; compare the extensive silver inlay and inset gems on the gilt-copper Lokanatha in the Patna Museum.[1] Copper is used throughout India for cast images that are designed to be fire-gilded, in contrast to the bronze or brass normally used in non-gilt figures.[2]
The circular rim of the statue would have been fixed into a separately-cast lotus base like the Pala gilt-copper Akshobhya in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which is cast in four parts: statue, lotus, lower pedestal, and prabha).[3] The minor flattening of the rim at the front and back and the slight indentations along the rim at the front probably occurred during the original joining of the statue to its lotus base, which would have required some degree of hammering to firmly secure the two parts.
Traces of blue pigment in the hair suggest the Tara has been in Tibetan worship. The bronze may have been taken to Tibet in the medieval period, either by pilgrims as a relic or for safekeeping during foreign Islamic incursions in India during the twelfth century.
Compare the robust modelling and the simple circular textile motif of three eastern Indian gilt-copper statues, including the Vairocana in the Zimmerman Collection and the Akshobhya in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (both ascribed a tenth century date) and the Padmapani in the Rietberg Museum (attributed to the eleventh century).[4] This rare and beautiful Pala Tara may thus be similarly dated to the tenth or eleventh centuries.[5]
1 Widely published but with color illustration accentuating the inlay in Asha Rani Mathur, ed., The Great Tradition: Indian Bronze Masterpieces, New Delhi, 1988, p. 138
2 Metal analysis of the White Tara by the Laboratory of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art revealed a high copper content of Cu 98.866 with minor trace elements, see von Schroeder, op. cit.
3 Ibid., 62E
4 Ibid., pls. 62D, E
5 Helmut Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment: The Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art at the Museum Rietberg Zürich, Zürich, 1995, p. 94, cat. no 48
