Yamantaka is standing in alidhasana on separately cast divinities and animals, and lotus base with neatly incised petals, both principal hands embracing his consort and holding the kartika and kapala. His other thirty-two radiate around his body holding his various attributes. He is adorned with jewelry and wears a mala of severed heads.

His bull-head displays a ferocious facial expression, surrounded by six other heads and topped with a further wrathful face below the head of Buddha, all backed by the deity’s neatly incised flaming hair. A flayed elephant hide is draped over his shoulders and back. The base sealed and incised with a double-vajra.

Provenance: The Kienzle Family Collection, Stuttgart, Germany. Acquired between 1950 and 1985 by siblings Else (1912-2006), Reinhold (1917-2008), and Dr. Horst Kienzle (1924-2019), during their extensive travels in Asia. Subsequently inherited by Dr. Horst Kienzle and bequeathed to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Radevormwald, Germany. Released through museum deaccession in 2024. The Kienzle siblings were avid travelers and passionate collectors of Asian and Islamic art. During their travels, the Kienzle’s sought out and explored temples, monasteries, and markets, always trying to find the best pieces wherever they went, investing large sums of money and forging lasting relationships to ensure they could acquire them. Their fervor and success in this pursuit is not only demonstrated by their collection but further recorded in correspondences between Horst Kienzle and several noted dignitaries, businesses and individuals in Nepal and Ladakh. Their collection had gained renown by the 1970s, but the Kienzle’s stopped acquiring new pieces around 1985. Almost thirty years later, the collection was moved to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Radevormwald, opened by Peter Hardt in 2014. Before his death in 2019, Horst Kienzle bequeathed his entire property to Peter Hardt and legally adopted him as his son, who has been using the name Peter Kienzle-Hardt ever since.
Condition: Excellent condition with minor wear and casting irregularities. One separately cast element possibly lost, indicated by the small central aperture to the top of the base. The seal plate possibly renewed.

Weight: 600.5 g
Dimensions: Height 10 cm

Yamantaka is also known as ‘The Opponent of Death’. According to Mullin and Weber (The Mystical Arts of Tibet, Atlanta, 1996, p. 110), meditation on Yamantaka "terrifies and chases away the three kinds of death: outer, inner and secret. The first is ordinary premature death caused by obstacles; inner death refers to the delusions and spiritual distortions, which kill happiness for self and others; and secret death refers to blockages in the subtle energy channels of the body, which produce an according mental distortion."

Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, described the iconography of Yamantaka as such: "[Nine] faces point to the ninefold classification of the scriptures; his two horns to the two truths [conventional and ultimate]; his thirty-four arms together with his spirituality, communication and embodiment in tangible form to the thirty-seven facts of enlightenment; his sixteen legs to sixteen kinds of no-thingness; the human being and the other mammals on which he stands to the eight attainments; the eagle and the other birds on which he tramples to the eight surpassing strengths; his nakedness to his being undefiled by emotional upsets or intellectual fogs [...]" (see Herbert V. Günther, Tibetan Buddhism without Mystification, Leiden, 1966 pp. 38-39).

Auction result comparison:
Type: Related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 March 2010, lot 235
Price: USD 23,750 or approx. EUR 32,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A silver, copper, and parcel-gilt bronze group of Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini, Tibet, 18^th century
Expert remark: Compare the related modeling, parcel gilding, and size (11.7 cm).