A THANGKA DEPICTING PADMASAMBHAVA TIBET, 15TH CENTURY |

holding the vajra in his raised right hand, kapala with ratna in the left, with khatvanga resting in the crook of his arm, dressed in layers of patterned textile robes and the Nyingmapa cap with upturned lappets, seated on a lotus emerging from a lake below, his consorts either side with Mandarava on the left, Yeshe Tsogyal on the right, surrounded by his Twenty-five disciples, Guru Dragpo below holding the scorpion, and Aksobhyavajra Guhyasamaja, Hayagriva, Chakrasamvara, Heruka, Hevajra and Green Tara in the lower register, Samantabhadra Buddha and consort in the upper register, flanked by the Eight forms of Padmasambhava, Shakya Sengge, Pema Jungne, Nyima Ozer, Oddiyana Vajradhara to the left, and Loden Chogse, Sengge Dradog, Pema Gyalpo, Dorje Drolo to the right, with Amitabha and Sadaksari Lokeshvara at either side of the trilobate shrine Himalayan Art Resources item no. 19374.

The composition of the trilobate arch and the depiction of the master’s consorts at either side is closely comparable to the fifteenth century painting of Padmasambhava in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Marylin M. Rhie, Robert A. F. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet, Expanded Edition, New York, 1996, p. 174, cat. no. 48. While the iconography of each painting is similar, the disciples and deities are arranged geometrically around the central shrine in the present example, and within scrolling vine in the V&A example. Rhie and Thurman note comparisons with fifteenth century Western Tibetan works from Guge, but conclude that the V&A painting is possibly an example of the fifteenth century Menri style of the central regions. The raised gold used in the jewellery and halos of the present example is a device often seen in central Tibetan works from at least the early thirteenth through the fifteenth century, supporting a fifteenth century attribution and provenance for the Padmasambhava: for a comprehensive discourse on the raised gold technique in early Tibetan painting, see Robert Bruce-Gardner, “Realizations: Reflections on Technique in Early Central Tibetan Painting”, in Steven M. Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, New York, 1998, pp. 193-205.