Page 84 - Blum Feinstein Tanka collection HIMALAYAN Art Bonhams March 20 2024

731
A DOUBLE PORTRAIT THANGKA OF TWO KAGYU LAMAS
TIBET, LATE 13TH/14TH CENTURY
Distemper and gold on cloth; verso inscribed with many lines of Tibetan script
in black ink arranged within a stupa, consisting of prayers starting with the
verse: Om a hum vajra guru padma siddhi hum, which is the seed mantra for
Padmasambhava; followed by consecration mantras for Vajrakila, Vagishvara,
Manjushri; and Om mani padme hum for Avalokiteshvara; Om vajra pani hum for
Vajrapani; followed by the ‘ye dharma hetu...’ Buddhist creed; and an excerpt from
the Pratimoksa sutra.
Himalayan Art Resources item no. 1859
Image: 26 3/4 x 21 5/8 in. (67.9 x 54.9 cm);
With mounts: 41 x 29 1/4 in. (104.1 x 74.3 cm)

$80,000 - 120,000

西藏 十三世紀晚期/十四世紀 噶舉派二祖師肖像唐卡

Two religious masters from the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism are seated
within the center of this brilliant thangka. The teacher on the left is garbed in
full monastic robes, whereas the Tibetan figure with long, shoulder-length hair
on the right dons a layman’s cloak. Both have circular marks, or urnas, on their
foreheads and are emblazoned with lustrous, golden complexions to signify their
transcendental states. Sumptuously adorning their powerful frames are robes
of vermillion and saffron accentuated by floral motifs imitating gold-embroidered
stitching. The assembly in its entirety comprises a lineage of deities and lamas
demarcated into three rows at the painting’s upper half, the sixteen dancing
goddesses at the bottom half, and ten figures residing in rocky dwellings behind
the central figures’ double archway. Some of these include delightfully chubby
renderings of Chakrasamvara and Vajrapani, as well as a Mahasiddha whose
matching iconography appears on a 12th century mural in the Par caves of Guge,
West Tibet (HAR 55334). As for the central figures, despite a lack of inscriptions
that would otherwise identify them by name, the appearance of the figure on
the right suggests that this thangka records a lineage transmission between an
early hierarch and the founder of the Kagyu order, Marpa Chokyi Lodro (1012-
96). Supporting this attribution is an inscribed 13th century painting of Marpa
as a young, handsome noble, instead of his usual portrayal as a gruff elder with
thinning hair, from the Pritzker Collection, published in Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic
Adventure, 2003, p. 195, no. 127. In its iconography, palette, and style, this
painting is consistent with other early Tibetan paintings that were created during
the 11th to 14th centuries. Parallels include a 13th c. thangka of Chakrasamavara
with similar dancing goddesses, also from the Pritzker Collection, published in
Kossak & Singer, Sacred Visions, 1998, p. 129, no. 32. Also noteworthy are
two early paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one depicting
Atisha and the other possibly as Dromton, with sturdy physiques and golden skin
(1993.479 & 1991.152). Lastly, there is a single portrait of a Kagyu lama from
a private collection, whose facial type is nearly identical with both lamas in the
present work (HAR 22395).

Published
Amy Heller, Thangka of Two Tibetan Teachers of the Kagyu Lineage, Nyon, 2008.

Provenance
Carlo Cristi, New York, 2006 (detail)

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82 | BONHAMS