This intricately cast figure of the many-armed meditation deity, Shri Hevajra and his consort, Vajra Nairatmya, is an exemplary example of fifteenth-century imperially-sponsored Buddhist imagery. The iconic style, thick casting and lavish gilding suggests it was produced in the imperial workshops of Beijing in the fifteenth century, a period of wide-reaching cultural exchange and religious efflorescence within Ming China. The Yongle Emperor (r. 1402-1424) moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, which had previously been the capital during the Yuan dynasty, and was still an important Buddhist pilgrimage site for Mongolian Buddhists. The Emperor sponsored the construction of numerous Tibetan Buddhist temples within the capital, and his successors, including the Xuande and Zhengtong Emperors, maintained this lavish patronage.
Hevajra holds a skull cup in each of his sixteen hands, with eight supporting an animal representing the Eight Diseases and the other eight supporting deities propitiated to remedy said diseases. The deity stands on two prostrate figures, with his consort Nairatmya held to his body with one leg wrapped around his waist and holding a skull cup and curved knife in her hands behind his head.
Hevajra’s back legs, which appear to be floating in the present work, would have originally been supported by two kneeling attendant figures, with the remains of the tangs for each figure visible in the present work on the front of the bronze (indicating that the figure was originally facing the other direction on the base); such figures are visible on a comparable Ming figure of Hevajra in the collection of Claude Demarteau, illustrated by A. Neven in Le tantrisme dans l’art et la pensée, Brussels, 1974, p. 76, cat. no. 390, and offered at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr, 4 October 2022, lot 17.
Stylistically, the present lot follows the Nepalese tradition established in Beijing during the Yuan dynasty. The Tibetan Chogyal Pagpa (1235-1280), abbot of Sakya monastery and personal guru to Kublai Khan, invited the esteemed Nepalese artisan, Araniko (also spelled Aniko or Anige), to Beijing, where he was appointed head of the imperially-sponsored atelier. During this time, most of the Buddhist craftsmen working in Beijing were Nepalese or Tibetan, and they followed Tibetan iconographic parameters. During the Ming dynasty, these iconographic and stylistic elements were largely retained, although the greater involvement of Chinese artisans resulted in a gradual sinicization of the style, especially apparent in the present work in the facial features of the prostrate figures. Although the present work does not bear an imperial mark, as some Ming gilt-bronzes do, it follows closely the style established during the Yongle period and which was continued with small changes in the Xuande and Zhengtong periods, suggesting a date in the first half of the fifteenth century.
Although there were countless gilt-bronzes cast during the Yongle and Xuande dynasties, examples of Hevajra are relatively rare. Perhaps the closest comparison can be made to a fifteenth-century gilt-bronze figure of Hevajra and Nairatmya sold at Sotheby’s London, 11 May 2016, lot 65, which sold for £185,000; both works have the similar waisted double-lotus base, the “floating” back legs of Hevajra, and similar treatment of the skirt and faces. A slightly larger figure of Hevajra bearing a Zhengtong mark corresponding to 1437 sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 November 2014, lot 3108, for HK$3,160,000 (approx. US$405,244), which was also closely related stylistically to the present lot. Other notable recent examples include a slightly larger fifteenth-century gilt-bronze figure of Mahakala Panjarnata sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 May 2018, lot 2863, for HK$12,100,000 (approx. US$1,551,726) and a larger-scale figure of Mahakala Panjarnata sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 May 2019, lot 2707, for HK$9,245,000 (approx. US$1,185,596).