An inscribed gilt-copper alloy figure of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Tibet, 17th century

French Private Collection, prior to 1940, and thence by descent.

This finely cast portrait depicts the fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682), one of the most significant figures in Tibetan political and religious history. Renowned as 'the Great Fifth' for his preeminent skills as a diplomat and politician, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the first Dalai Lama to assume both spiritual and secular leadership (with the support of the Mongol leader Gushri Khan) within a newly unified Central Tibet. He commissioned the construction of two of the world's most awe-inspiring edifices: the Potala palace, his headquarters and monastery; and the Lukhang, his private meditation temple built within a man-made lake, illustrated with very finely executed seventeenth century esoteric wall murals. He also is credited with engineering the demise of the aristocratic military hegemony by forcing their residency in Lhasa and bestowing key political positions upon them. Thus power was centralized in the capital under the direct auspices of Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, establishing the dynastic government that survived in Tibet until 1959.

Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was politically astute and an outstanding statesman, and also a prolific author of works on philosophy, meditation, history and poetry. For example, the exquisite 'Gold Manuscript' now in the Musée Guimet is a record of his tantric visions that reveal a complex understanding of Tibetan Buddhist ritual. For further discussion, see Samten Gyaltsen Karmay, Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama, London, 1988.

The current figure closely relates to a larger inscribed gilt-copper alloy figure of the fifth Dalai Lama sold in these rooms, 13th-14th September 2016, lot 161 for an unprecedented price. See also characteristics of the current work in two other seventeenth century sculptures, an ungilt bronze sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (acc. no. 50.3606); and also a polychromed wood sculpture previously exhibited at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zürich (2005) and sold in these rooms, 19th March 2008, lot 312.