LOCAL NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Art
Nepalese Bronze Sold at Record Price

By Arun Ranjit

Many foreign scholars, historians and other experts consider Nepal, a country rich in cultural heritage, as a treasure house of arts. There is no doubt that art is the creation of time, history and human mind .

The art of Nepal has not only become famous in itself but has also played a pioneering role . It is changing and growing, but at a slower pace than much of the rest of Asia .

At the heart of Nepal’s visual arts heritage is the influential art and craft of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley .

After their creative peak about six hundred years ago tale of Newari craftsmanship and their fertile imaginations spread far and wide . Artists were commissioned in India and Tibet to create decorative murals and to paint work that possessed strong religious themes mostly Hindu and Budhists, for monasteries and palaces . Inspring the Newari creators were the lives of the gods , saints and heroes .

Those days of glory have gone in Nepal but now only the physical evidence of the artists’ works remain . As the declining trend has continued for a long period the time has come to revamp the art sector .

Many artists were born in this land behind some of the greatest relics and examples of art .But, however, there are some old generation artists who are still working for the pride of Nepal and the young artists are booming into the field too .

Every now and then, an auction drags into the limelight a major art to which little attention is paid because the ancient land in which it blossomed is impoverished, its culture is complex and unfamiliar and its languages are barely understood in the West .

Only a few cultures of Asia remain as elusive as this one . Its native population of Mongolian stock came to mix with Indo-Aryan communities to form the Lichhavi dynasty in an around 400 AD .

The Aryans cannot have been very numerous for the largest community in Nepal. The fate of Newars, who speak a language called Newari written down in various lipis, most have been interwoven with the beginning of Budhism .

Of the Thakuri dynasty that came after the Lichhavis around the middle of the 8th century and ruled until 12th century, not much is known except the name .

Art is the only tangible reality that tells us many things about the early culture of Nepal .

In his monumetal visual encyclopedia of India and Himalayan bronzes, called "indo-Tibetan-Nepalese Bronzes" Urich von Schoroeder gathered in compact form all that was known by 1981 and much else that he discovered on the subject of Nepalese bronze statuary.

Its source of inspiration was from the earliest dated piece now available in the Cleveland Museum of art; standing Buddha dated 591 A.D. But even there, a difference is already perceptible, greater softness emanates from the face of the Nepalese piece.

Looking at the Buddhist works and the Hindu figures, one is struck by the blissful serenity they so often convey regardless of sectarian allegiance, as if trite were some fundamental trait of Nepalese religious mediation.

Talking to this scribe in New York recently, Mr. Toshihiko Hatanaka the Senior Vice President of CHRISTIE’S — an world renowned auction house— says that in an auction of "Indian and Southeast Asian Works of Art" held on 17th October 2001 in New York, a bronze figure of Tara from Nepal was sold out at US $358,000.

This knocked down price at the auction of Christie’s is the first recorded price. And this is the world record price to be ever paid by a customer for an object, he said.

An extraordinary figure of standing gilt bronze Tara believed to be dated 11th/12th century gracefully and powerfully modeled standing in tribhanga, her right hand lowered and holding a lotus bud and left hand holding the stem of a lotus flower rising to her shoulder, wearing a diaphanous dhoti delicately draped across her chest and finely delineated, secured with a bejeweled sash at the waist and incised with bands of flora and geometric patterns below, foliate armlets and necklace inset with semiprecious stones, a sash extending down from her shoulder and flaring to her left side, her face with a serene expression and downcast eyes flanked by large earings and curly tresses of hair spilling down over her shoulders, surmounted by an intricate tiara inset with semiprecious stones and with her gathered in two chignons at the side.

The 54.9-cm high sculpture turned up in a Christie’s sale where dating uncertainties made no differences to the price. It soared to an impressive height, he added.

Tara is believed to be born from the eye of Avalokiteshwara represents compassion, transcendent knowledge and perfect purity.

Early Nepalese bronze figures of this size and importance are extremely rare. Apart from the Dr. Albert Shelton collection at the Newark Museum, acquired in 1911, it is one of the earliest documented pieces of important Himalayan sculpture in private collection prior to the World War I, When it was published by Alice Getty in her seminal work on The gods of Northern Buddhism in 1914 as part of the Henry H. Getty Collection.

Compare to a gilt figure this Tara sculptor is very similar with Vasundhara being put up in the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, bejeweled tiara, armlets and pendants. The voluptuous modeling is closely related and would suggest a similar circa 11th century date.

As will often happen with the art of a remote culture that is not very well known and appears in small numbers in a given place at any time, whether in a museum or a sale, little difference is made in the market between great beauty and conventional images.

According to the sources, a 27.9-cm high bronze figure of seated Buddha of Nepal from 11th century was sold out at US $85,000 a year ago.

Similarly, at the same auction, an admirable 23.8 cm figure of bronze cult 12-armed Amoghapasa believed to be from 9th century figure was also auctioned off at US $ 57,500. Likewise, the 19th century figure of Kali with arms in hand and an elephant skin thrown over her left shoulder was sold for US 43,700.

Did the bronze making mastery persuade the Nepalese sculptors of that period to carve stone with metalic sharpness and with two four-armed Hindu deities embracing each other, possibly of the 16th century or little earlier was sold out for US $101,500.

But perhaps, it is time for the tribute of admiration paid by their market to give way to a truly major art show of Nepalese art and crafts paid for by the international community .

Meanwhile, besides Christie’s many other auction plans at various cities of the world, is going to auction of Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art on 21 November 2001 in Amsterdam of The Netherlands.

Hope this auction will also draw the international art dealers and collectors to the Nepalese works with recorded prices.

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