NEW YORK.- This fall Sotheby’s will again have the special theme sale, The Arts of the Buddha, on September 21st, 2007. The sale presents the aesthetic achievements of all the major Far Eastern cultures in India, China and Cambodia and will include a physical representation of the Divine in different media such as paintings, drawings and sculpture. The cornerstone of the sale is a magnificent and highly important 13th century Tibetan gilt bronze Maitreya, which is among the most important Himalayan works of art ever to come to auction (in the region of $3.5 million). Property from the sale, which includes 64 lots, will be on exhibition beginning September 14th and is estimated to bring $8.3/11.2 million.

Theresa McCullough, senior specialist in charge of the sale, commented: “The sale celebrates the splendor of Buddhist art and includes three exceptional lots illustrating the transference of ideas and craftsmanship between Tibet and China during the early Ming Dynasty. It is unprecedented to have three such works in one sale. Also included in the sale is a private Swiss Collection of Himalayan bronzes, a beautiful Yuan Dynasty wooden Avalokitesvara and two highly rare 15th century Tibetan Sakya Mandalas painted by Newar artists.”

Speaking of the top lot, David Weldon, senior consultant for the sale, said: “This exceptional statue of Maitreya is the quintessential example of Nepalese artistic influence in Tibet during the thirteenth century and is evidence of the absolute mastery of the Newar artists. The image of the Buddha of the Future is amongst the very finest Buddhist sculptures to have survived from the period, and to have survived in such pristine condition.”

The magnificent gilded and bejewelled copper alloy image of Maitreya portrays the Buddha of the Future as a princely bodhisattva in Tushita Heaven. Maitreya’s status in the Buddhist canon is paramount for he embodies the enduring hope for the salvation of all sentient beings. The bodhisattva personifies the principal Buddhist tenet of compassion, clearly portrayed in Maitreya’s divine countenance, his princely paradisian status evident in regal jewelry and resplendent celestial presence. The rich gilding of the present work is almost entirely intact with a soft sheen and subtle hue. The jewelry is quite superb, retaining original inset semi-precious stones of fabulous colour. The Newar sculptural aesthetics of grace and sensuous modelling imbue the statue with serenity, while the Tibetan love for opulence is seen in the depth and variety of color in the jewels and the sumptuous silver beading of the necklace and crown.

A rare and important early Ming kesi thanka, depicting Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi, China, 1416-1435, will also be featured (est. $1/1.5 million). This unique and historically important early Ming kesi thanka of Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi engaging in the perfect union of Wisdom and Compassion served as a device for the visualization of the Chakrasamvara tantra, literally Circle of Bliss. The tantra is a secret treatise with its origin in medieval eastern India and is used by practitioners to increase their ability to attain the ultimate goal of Enlightenment. This twelve-armed blue Samvara holds prescribed ritual implements and the severed head of the four-faced Brahma. The artistic style, and indeed the painstaking weaving technique of the kesi thanka, is rooted in the Yuan dynasty. Four such early Ming dynasty silk kesi banners are recorded depicting esoteric tantric deities from the Tibetan pantheon; all, apart from the Chakrasamvara, remain in Tibetan monastery collections.

Another cornerstone for the sale is a rare and highly important imperial painting on silk depicting the Lohan Chudapanthaka, China, mark and period of Yongle (est. $1.5/2 million). The portrait of Chudapanthaka demonstrates a continuum of classical painting style and subject matter that had long been popular in China. Seated in vajraparyankasana on an outcrop of rock spread with a floral patterned red and green covering, his hands in meditation position, dhyana mudra, he is wearing flowing white and cream garments and a monk’s patchwork robe. The work bears the inscription “da Ming Yongle nian shi”, meaning “bestowed in the Yongle era of the great Ming”, and is one of only two known arhat paintings commissioned by the Yongle emperor. The pair to this Chudapanthaka painting depicts the arhat Vajriputra and is now in the Robert Rosenkranz Collection. The pair of paintings, defined by a mastery of restrained elegance and formality, survives from a set of sixteen or possibly eighteen, the remaining paintings now lost or unrecorded.