Page 46 - Bonhams Image of Devotion Hong Kong December 2, 2021

1017
A CAST GILT COPPER ALLOY PANEL WITH OFFERING GODDESSES
DENSATIL, CENTRAL TIBET, 14TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.4505
32 x 37.5 cm (12 5/8 x 14 3/4 in.)

HKD3,000,000 - 4,000,000

丹薩替 藏中 十四世紀 銅鎏金供養天女飾板

From the 13th to 15th century, an early Kagyu order known as the Phagmo Drupa
rose to great prominence in Central Tibet. Its monastic seat of power, Densatil,
was built on the final resting place of the order’s eponymous founder Phagmo
Drupa Dorje Gyalpo (1110-70). As the sect grew in wealth and political power,
eight lavishly decorated monumental stupas, known as tashi gomang (“many
doors of auspiciousness”) were constructed in Densatil monastery’s main hall.
These multi-tiered structures were covered by Buddhist gilt bronze sculptures and
relief panels, each of astonishing quality. Their splendor was captured on black
and white film by the Italian photographer Pietro Francesco Mele, who was invited
by Giuseppe Tucci on an expedition to Densatil in 1948.

Most of these tashi gomang stupas were created following similar blueprints,
consisting of six stepped tiers. The present panel would have been placed on the
fifth tier (working top to bottom), joined by fifteen similar panels each depicting
four dancing offering goddesses in high relief. These sixteen panels were evenly
distributed between the four directions of the stupa. On each of the four sides,
three female deities would appear in the center, flanked by two of these panels
(see Czaja & Proser, Golden Visions of Densatil, New York, 2014, pp.38-9).

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