INNER MONGOLIA, DOLONNOR STYLE, LATE 18TH CENTURY

The present work was likely created in or around the thriving Buddhist center of Dolonnor in Inner Mongolia. Aspects such as the heavy folds of the drapery, the tall, tightly waisted base, and the curled chignon tied with a floral spray all point to a Dolonnor attribution. Compare the treatment of the jewelry, particularly the beaded ornaments in the hair, as well as drapery and base with a repoussé gilt-bronze figure of Manjushri in the collection of the Rietberg Museum, Zurich, illustrated by Helmut Uhlig in On the Path to Enlightenment: The Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art at the Museum Rietberg Zurich, Zurich, 1995, p. 114, cat. no. 65.
During the Qing period, the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Emperors patronized Dolonnor as a center of Buddhist learning and artistic production. The site was purposefully built not far from Shangdu (Xanadu), the old thirteenth century summer capital of Kublai Khan. The Mongolian lama, master artist, and leader of the Khalka Mongols, Zanabazar, formally assimilated his khanate into the Qing Empire before the Kangxi Emperor at Dolonnor in 1691. It continued to be an important bronze image foundry even into the late nineteenth century, as noted by the Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky on one of his expeditions to Mongolia in the 1870s (N. Przhevalsky, Mongolia, London, 1876, p. 105).

Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24510.