TIBETO-CHINESE, PALA REVIVAL STYLE, 18TH CENTURY

Tibetan Buddhism was patronized by the Qing emperors, particularly the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722) and his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor (1736-1795), both for personal and political reasons, resulting in a surge in the production of Buddhist sculpture and painting. During the reign of Qianlong, the artisans of the Beijing workshops increasingly emulated sculpture from different periods and geographic areas, using as models the bronzes given as gifts from Tibetan dignitaries to the Qing court. Examples of Pala-style sculpture, from ninth-twelfth century Northeastern India, still remain in The Palace Museum Collection. Compare with a Pala-period bronze figure of Vajrasattva, illustrated in Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected in the Qing Palace, Beijing, 1992, Catalogue no. 56, and with a Pala-style Tibetan brass statue of Manjushri (see ibid., cat. no. 53).
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24451.