A TIBETAN BRONZE SCULPTURE OF A WHITE TARA

18TH CENTURY

Seated on a double lotus base, wearing a dhoti and a beaded necklace, her left hand in vitarka mudra, her right in varada mudra, with lotus sprays and celestial ribbons at her shoulders, 13cm, 843g.

Provenance: a British private collection from 1978.

Tibetans credit the White Tara, in this incarnation, with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the 7th century. In this rare sculpture White Tara is not adorned with her usual Bodhisattva jewellery but instead she wears a distinctive headdress of a type seen on portraits of early Tibetan royalty. This suggests that the sculpture is a rare portrait of Princess Wencheng as an incarnation of White Tara, one of the most popular female deities in Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans believe that she reincarnated herself in the Chinese Princess Wencheng, one of two wives of King Srongtsan Gampo.