Lot 3045. A large gilt-bronze figure of the ascetic Sakyamuni, Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368); 49.4 cm.,19 1/2in. Estimate 1,500,000 — 2,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 3,620,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the finely cast figure seated in vajrasana on a circular ground cloth decorated with Buddhist emblems, butterflies and sprigs, wearing loose robes falling in crisp folds over his dhoti tied at the waist, the hems finely incised with a lotus scroll reserved on a circle-punched ground, the dhoti with florets, his hands clasped in uttarhabodimudra, his chest marked with a wan emblem, his serene face with eyes closed in meditation, with hair, moustache and beard arranged in tight curls below the oval ushnisha, wood stand.

Provenance: Christie's Hong Kong, 30th October 1994, lot 389.

Note: Compare with the large seated gilt-bronze Sakyamuni in The Cleveland Museum of Art dated to the 14th Century, illustrated by Sherman Lee, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Sculpture, pl. 18 where the author notes "a work of this quality and size strongly suggests that it originated in the government workshops, under the auspices of the directorate of "lost-wax" products.

Ulrich von Schroeder discusses the rarity of the Yuan dynasty bronzes in his volume Indo-Tibetan Bronzes on p. 511, "only three of the illustrated images, which may date from the Yuan Dynasty, are clearly products of Chinese craftsmenship, since they do not follow Nepalese or Tibetan prototypes: Mahakala (fig. 143B), Arhat Bhadra (143C); and Siddhartha (fig. 143E)". The present lot is another such example.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 april 2011