A gilt-bronze of Vajrabhairava

Description:

TIbeto-Chinese, early 19th cent.
H. 25 cm
Standing pratyalidhasana on various figures and animals, all reclining on the lotus base, his principle arms embracing his consort who is offering him a blood-filled kapala and karttrika, he is holding in his left hand as well the kapala while the right originally the karttrika, the other arms radiating around his body, wearing tiger-skirt, elephant-skin draped over his shoulders, mala of severed heads, his multiple heads with central bull face displaying a wrathful expression with bulging eyes below bushy eyebrows, pair of horns and pricked ears, open snout, his red coloured flaming hair set with another head and secured with a skull-tiara, resealed.
From an important South German private collection, collected since the 1960s, acquired in November 1979 from Liselotte Nachtigall, München (original expertise preserved) - Very minor wear, attributes partly lost