Asian Arts / 5000 Years
Asian Arts / 5000 Years
PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION | 歐洲私人收藏
A fine thangka depicting Maitreya and Manjushri, Tibet, 14th - 15th century | 十四至十五世紀 藏傳彌勒佛及文殊菩薩唐卡 設色布本
Lot Closed
December 21, 01:35 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
Property from a European Private Collection
A fine thangka depicting Maitreya and Manjushri
Tibet, 14th - 15th century
distemper on cloth, Maitreya on the left with flowers at the shoulder supporting a golden wheel of the law (chakra) and a water vessel (kalasha), and hands in the gesture of learned discussion (vitarka mudra), Manjushri on the right with a sword (khadga) and sacred text (pustaka), and the teaching gesture of turning the wheel of the law (dharmachakra mudra), the bodhisattvas richly adorned with golden jewellery and sumptuous textiles, each with aureole and halo and seated at ease in regal posture (lalitasana) on lotus pedestals supported by a lion throne (simhasana), the lions flanking protector deities Panjarnata and Bhagavat Mahakala, Guru Dragpo to the left and Mahottara Heruka to the right, a register of seated deities beneath, Shakyamuni Buddha between the haloes of the principal bodhisattvas and a Kagyu lineage above with a black-hatted Gyalwa Karmapa upper left.
Height 85 cm, 33½ in.; Width 68 cm, 26¾ in.
__________________________________________________________________________
Collection particulière européenne
Tangka représentant Maitreya et Manjushri, détrempe sur toile, Tibet, XIVe - XVe siècle
__________________________________________________________________________
歐洲私人收藏
十四至十五世紀 藏傳彌勒佛及文殊菩薩唐卡 設色布本
Acquired on the 26th April 1994.
__________________________________________________________________________
得於1994年4月26日
Maitreya and Manjushri are depicted at ease and in debate as envisioned by the Indian master Atisha (c. 982-1054) whilst teaching in Tibet. It is recorded that Atisha sent word to his monastery of Vikramashila in Bihar describing the vision and requesting a painting be made of it and sent to Tibet, see Steven Kossak, Painted Images of Enlightenment: Early Tibetan Thankas, 1050-1450, Marg Publications, 2010, pp. 48-53. A large, fragmentary work depicting this iconography is carbon-dated to circa 1050 and may be the eastern Indian painting commissioned by Atisha, ibid, pl. 34.
This fine and rare fourteenth or early fifteenth century thangka upholds the Tibetan tradition established by Atisha of depicting the bodhisattvas Maitreya and Manjushri in discourse. Kossak notes that Atisha’s vision includes the ancient Buddhist convention that Manjushri was Maitreya’s teacher, ibid p. 52, fn. 28, implied in this painting with Manjushri’s teaching gesture, dharmachakra mudra, and Maitreya’s gesture of learned discussion, vitarka mudra.
The work is distinguished by the vibrant palette and the lavish and well-preserved raised droplets of gold delineating jewellery: compare the raised gold-work and the arched niches of a fourteenth century Green Tara at Asia Society, see Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, p. 70, pl. 53: compare also the palette, and the depiction of deities in gold rather than their individual iconographic colours. Compare the style of arched niche and elaborate flourish on the tips of lotus petals with a late fourteenth or early fifteenth century Central Tibetan Avalokiteshvara in the Zimmerman Family Collection, see Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet, Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 463.