西藏 十五世紀 蓮花生大士唐卡 |

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.