Page 106 - important chinese art mar 22 2018

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Meticulously painted and capturing a lyricism to denote the This painting follows in the Chinese tradition of Buddhist
serenity of the scene, this painting is an exceptionally rare painting, which fused elements of Tibetan, Indian and Chinese
and % ne example of late Ming Buddhist painting. It is framed imagery and reinterpreted them in a palette reminiscent of
by a painted silk lotus scroll border, in simulation of brocade that seen on Chinese silk painting. In its style it has its roots
mounts, and the % ve-clawed dragons at the top suggest this in the Tang Dynasty paintings found at Cave 17 at Dunhuang
painting was commissioned not as a gift but for use at the in Gansu province, from the overall composition and color
court by the Chongzhen emperor himself. scheme to the billowing clouds and scarves to denote the
celestial nature of the % gures and inscribed cartouches.
This painting is a masterpiece of late-Ming esoteric Buddhist
Compare a silk painting of Avalokiteshvara in the same eleven-
painting. This magni% cent multi-armed and multi-headed
headed form similarly surrounded by a myriad of % gures,
manifestation is one of the most popular forms of the
recovered from Dunhuang and attributed to the early 9th
bodhisattva in Tibetan Buddhism and represents the deity as
century, now in the British Museum, London, published in W.
Sahasrabhuja-sahasranetra Avalokitesvara (‘with a thousand
Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism. Art and Faith, London, 1985, pl. 320.
arms and a thousand eyes’), elegantly rendered in delicate
lines and warm tones, surrounded by extended hands that The eleven-headed form of the popular Avalokitesvara was
each holds an attribute. The principal hands held before the revered in China from the late Ming dynasty through the Qing
heart symbolically protect the jewel of enlightenment. The ten and was frequently depicted in various materials; see a large
additional heads symbolize the steps on the path to Buddhist bronze % gure attributed to the seventeenth century, from the
enlightenment, represented here by the % gure of Amitabha Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, sold twice in these
Buddha held aloft; Amitabha being the spiritual progenitor of rooms, 16th April 1971, lot 161, and again, 16th September
the bodhisattva. Numerous inscribed cartouches throughout 2009, lot 129; one from the Staatliche Museen PreuBischer
the painting identify the characters within the landscape and Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, illustrated in
include the thirty-six revered o= cials and the twenty-eight Chinese Art in Overseas Collections: Buddhist Sculpture II,
lunar mansions. Taipei, 1990, pl. 190; and an imperial thangka, dated to the
Qianlong period, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published
in Tangka Paintings in the Collection of the Palace Museum,
Beijing, 2010, pl. 164.

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