A RARE AND IMPORTANT SILVER-INLAID BRONZE FIGURE OF MAITREYA, POST-GANDHARA, SWAT VALLEY OR KASHMIR, 6TH-7TH CENTURY
This lot is a museum deaccession and is therefore offered without reserve

Finely cast standing in samabhanga on a circular lotus blossom atop a stepped square plinth, backed by an elaborate combined nimbus and aureole with radiating ovoid spokes tipped with a triratna motif. His right hand is raised and holding a mala (rosary), while the left is lowered and holds a small vase. He is framed by an elaborate mandorla, intricately worked with radiating flame motifs. He wears a tall conical crown, large circular earrings, and ornate jewelry, along with a pleated dhoti with a flowing tail and a scarf draped over one shoulder. The face is serene, with wide silver-inlaid eyes, thick eyelids, full lips, and elongated earlobes.

Provenance: Galerie Hardt (established in 1976), Radevormwald, Germany, before 2020. Acquired by the gallery’s founder Peter Hardt (b. 1946) during his extensive travels in Asia, the first of which occurred during a formative world tour in 1973. Throughout his storied career, Peter Kienzle-Hardt organized countless exhibitions and participated in major international art fairs. He made many important contacts during this time and eventually met the Kienzle siblings, who shared his passion for Asian art and culture. A strong bond and deep friendship developed, ultimately leading to the creation of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst decades later in 2014. While the museum’s permanent exhibition predominantly comprised pieces from the Kienzle Family Collection, Peter Kienzle-Hardt supplemented it with objects from his own collection. Before his death in 2019, Horst Kienzle bequeathed his entire property to Peter and legally adopted him as his son, who has been using the name Peter Kienzle-Hardt ever since.
Labels: Galerie Hardt, printed ‘stehender Buddha Bronze Kashmir, 12 Jh‘ (sic!), priced at EUR 12,750. 
Condition: Very good condition with minor wear and casting irregularities. Few minuscule nicks, some dents, and light scratches. A thick naturally-grown patina with areas of malachite encrustation.

Weight: 619 g 
Dimensions: Height 19 cm

This impressive figure of Maitreya belongs to an extremely rare type of bronze figure cast in the regions of ancient Gandhara and the Swat Valley in the fifth through seventh centuries. The solidly cast bronze is a masterpiece of the Buddha image, illustrating the exquisite marriage of the contemporary Gupta style with the earlier influences of Hellenistic Gandhara.

During the Kushan period, Gandhara was a fervent center of Buddhism, with thousands of monasteries sprawled across the wide riverine plains and tucked away in the more remote valleys north of the Kabul River. The demand for images of the Buddha was great and the vast quantity of works in schist and stucco, and to a lesser degree terracotta and bronze, illustrates the rich artistic tradition of the region. The decline of the Kushans, however, precipitated the invasion of the Huns in the middle of the fifth century, and the peace and splendor of Gandhara was destroyed. Those that survived sought refuge in the remote valleys of Swat and the Hindu Kush, where Buddhism quietly endured until the invasion of Muslim forces in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

During the fifth through seventh centuries, the period referred to as Post-Gandhara, the production of large Buddhist works in stone and stucco declined, while the creation of smaller scale images in bronze reached a zenith. This phenomenon must be explained in part by the new conditions of Buddhist worship during this time; except for certain sites such as Bamiyan, the large and wealthy monasteries of the previous era had been replaced by smaller, migratory groups of worshipers. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who traveled to India in the first half of the seventh century, described the situation in Swat as follows: "There had formerly been 1400 monasteries but many of these were now in ruins, and once there had been 18,000 [Buddhist] Brethren but these had gradually decreased until only a few remained" (U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, p. 72).

Buddhist adherents were pushed to the margins of society and could no longer afford to commission large and permanently installed works. Images in stucco were extremely fragile, while works in schist were too heavy to transport. Bronze, on the other hand, was durable, and when scaled down to a small size and cast in several parts, could be bundled up and carried from place to place. Despite the reduced size, the present work would no doubt have been an expensive and precious object of veneration.

The combined nimbus and aureole backplate of the present work is related to the small group of late Gandharan bronzes where the backplate has survived, but with an unprecedented flourish of details. Art historians have labeled the unusual radiating spokes as a pearl and oval pattern – a lozenge that extends from a single bead and terminates in three beads arranged in a triangle. The exact significance of the shape is unclear, although some have suggested the three beads may relate to the triratna, the 'Three Jewels' of Buddhism - the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha (brotherhood of monks). The form is clearly related to the stucco halos found in niches in the caves of Bamiyan, dated to the late sixth and early seventh centuries, and it is partly through the connection of the two halo types that scholars have dated the corpus of the late Gandhara bronzes. The radiating spokes of the backplate provide a visual dynamism in its juxtaposition with the restrained pose of the Buddha and may represent the omnipotence of Buddha's law.

Literature comparison: 
Compare a related larger bronze figure of a standing Buddha dated ca. late 6th century, 33.7 cm high, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 1981.188a, b.

Auction result comparison: 
Type: Closely related 
Auction: Christie’s New York, 20 March 2014, lot 1604
Price: USD 509,000 or approx. EUR 605,000  converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing 
Description: A highly important and rare bronze figure of Buddha, Gandhara, 6th/7th century
Expert remark: Compare the closely related material, casting manner, aureole and size (22 cm).