Page 40 - Himalayan Art Macrh 19 2018 Bonhams

3022
A THANGKA OF BHAISHAJYAGURU
CENTRAL TIBET, 14TH CENTURY
Distemper on cloth.
Himalayan Art Resources item no.58520
20 7/8 x 18 7/8 in. (53 x 48 cm)

$150,000 - 200,000
西藏中部 十四世紀 藥師佛唐卡

This important painting depicts the Medicine Buddha, Bhaishajyaguru, with an intense
sapphire blue. He holds a medicine bowl and a myrobalan plant in his apricot colored
palms. The flawless execution of details, chromatic diversity, and iconographic variety
enhances the richness of this composition. What is unusual about this painting is the
placement of Bhaishajyaguru’s attendants, Suryaprabha and Candraprabha. Instead of
flanking the Medicine Buddha, they are placed on either side of the rainbow arch while
two disciples in monastic attire flank the central figure.

Prajnaparamita, the personification of wisdom, is directly above Bhaishajyaguru, while
the space around him is filled with repeated Shakyamuni Buddhas to enhance the
painting’s religious efficacy. Descending in the outer registers are the Ten Dikpalas on
their characteristic mounts and the Twelve Yakshas.

In the Bhaishajyagurusutra, cited in the 8th-century tantric Manjusrimulakalpa,
Bhaishajyaguru vowed that those who utter his name would be cured of diseases. This
sutra describes methods by which one may gain merit from Bhaishajyaguru, which
include merely thinking of his name, reciting the sutra, or creating an image of him.

The rainbow arch is a leitmotif in 13th-/14th-century portrait thangkas of early Kagyu
masters. Compare with numerous examples for instance in Jackson, Painting Traditions
of the Drigung Kagyu School, New York, 2015, ch.5, pp.75-99. The arch indicates
that this painting would have also been commissioned for an initial setting like Drigung,
Taglung, or Densatil monastery.

Compare this thangka more specifically with other significant examples published in
Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure, Chicago, 2003, p.192, no.125 (Fig. 1); Rhie
& Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, London, 1991, p.417, no.162; and sold at
Sotheby’s, New York, 20 March 1997, lot 79.

Exhibited
Masterworks: Jewels of the Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 4 February 2015
- 11 January 2016.

Provenance
David Tremayne Ltd, London, 30 June 1987
Private European Collection

Fig. 1
Thangka of Bhaishajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha
Central Tibet, 13th/14th century
Pigment and gold on cotton
Kate S. Buckingham Fund
The Art Institute of Chicago (1996.29)

38 | BONHAMS