Museum Javanese Gold Gilded Standing Dewi Tara Statuette

Masterpiece Museum Javanese Gold Gilded Standing Dewi Tara Statuette. 10th-13th Century. Central Java, Indonesia circa 10-13th century Offered is an exquisite Javanese fire gold gilt bronze of the goddess dewi tara, majapahit kingdom, dating from the 10th - 13th centuries. The details are incredible and her overall stance is extremely graceful, not stiff or exaggerated, demonstrating the continued influence that the art of Southern India had on Javanese art. Also note her most beautiful face, graced with a sensuousness and sublimity not always seen in even the best of Majapahit sculpture. The deity has been thickly covered with gold with the fine detailing around the head entirely of gold. Wrapping a metal core with gold and then working that gold was a technique used on Java during the period – see a sceptre in The Met in New York for an example. Gold figures from Java from this period to appear from time to time (here is an example) but rarely are they of this size and quality. Gilded examples are actually rarer. The interior of the base is fixed with an old paper collection label which reads: ‘Fire gilt bronze tara 13thc’. The reference to fire gilding seems incorrect. The image is more likely to have been cold gilded – covered with sheet gold and gold leaf, so that the gold on the surface was thick enough to be worked. This statuette holds a lotus pod in her left hand always associated with Dewi tara as opposed to her sister dewi sri who holds a rice husk. For more information and reference for a gold figure from the same collection go to my website titled Bodhisattva''s, Buddha's and Gods category. At this price is a real opportunity to own a genuine Japanese work of art at totally sensible money. Provenance:- The A. T. Dexter Collection. Duke's Asian Art, Friday 14th November 2014, Lot 470. Acquired in the USA & Netherlands in the 1980s. Price includes free world shipping. £1995 GBP. Bank transfers, viewings, discussions, etc all welcomed. Purveyors of unusual rare distinctive quality tribal rugs and carpets, Howard & Sons seating, some Orientalist items and decorative objects for the everyman.