A RARE GROUP OF THREE GILT-BRONZE STANDING ARHAT

Estimated Value:

6.000 € - 10.000 €

Result:

incl. Premium and VAT

Description:

China, Kangxi to Qianlong period
H. 22,5 - 22,8 cm (26 - 26,5 cm mit Ständen)
Mounted on rectangular wooden stands.
The group of arhats originally from the collection of Baron Ledebur, Chiemsee, Bavaria, to whom records indicate 12 from this group were collected in China in the 1920s, one arhat acquired by the present owner in 1993 from a member of the Ledebur family, the other two bought at Nagel, 14.12.2004, lot 866a and Nagel, 6.6.2015, lot 1777
The Sanskrit term arhat means ”he who is worthy”. Arhats are the disciples of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni and represent a class of beings who have attained enlightenment by themselves and are considered the perfect saints. The belief in and wor ship of arhats in China, where they are called luohan, resulted in pictorial and sculptural images and the artist felt relatively unconstrained by strict iconography in the way he represented them. Therefore the identification of particular arhats is diffi cult, and mostly often possible by inscription only. A series representing the arhats would often comprise a total of twenty-five bronzes. To the Sixteen Great Arhats were added the layman Dharmatala and Hvashang, who invited sixteen arhats to China by imperial decree, to form a group of eighteen. Buddha Shakyamuni and his principal disciples Maudgalyayana and Shariputra, and the Four Guardians of the Directions, Vaishravana, Virupaksha, Virudhaka and Dhritarashtra make up the complete group of twenty-five. Luohan imagery was popular with Emperor Qianlong. A large group of bronze images of luohans, dated Qi anlong by cast inscription and bearing names of the individuals represented, was housed in the upper storey of the Baoxianglou, a Lama temple in the garden of the Cininggong in the Forbidden City (W. Clark, Two Lamaistic Pantheons, Reprint New York 1965, and Frederick Bunce, Vajrayana Images of the Bao-Xiang Lou, 3 vol., 2008) - Very minor wear to gilding

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