Page 15 - Bonhams May 11th 2017 London Thangka Collection

More often than not, the strength of a collection will fall on the side of either B
sculpture or painting. Many museum collections are the result of gifts from
affluent donors who might also have been collectors. They may also have their
own preferences for sculpture or painting.

A popular notion is that collecting sculpture is much easier than collecting
paintings. A common remark might be “paintings are so complicated,
sculpture is much easier to understand.” This may be true on a certain level,
and it is a basic level of simply recognising the human or human-like form. A
single sculptural figure with one face and two arms placed in recognisable
postures is certainly understandable. However, such single objects are
completely out of any context. Yes, there may be a basic recognition of form,
but there is no understanding of use, purpose of creation and the full scope of
the work of art.

Paintings are actually easier to understand because they have greater context.
There is more complexity and generally more figures in a composition to work
from.

The first rule when trying to understand a Himalayan work of art, sculpture
or painting, aesthetics aside, is to determine if the object is a single one-off
creation or if it belongs to a set of objects or compositions. The important rule
to remember is that half or more of all Himalayan style art is created in sets.
With Buddhist art the sets of objects are most often uneven numbered, three,
five, seven, fifteen, or more compositions. In a few rare cases the sets will
number more than one hundred in total.

With paintings it is far easier to determine single compositions from sets of
compositions. The main subject of a composition along with the surrounding
figures and narrative will often indicate a set or a single object.

In this particular collection of late Himalayan art painting the majority are of
Tibetan origin. At least thirty compositions belong to larger sets. A number
of the sets are immediately recognisable by the subject matter such as
the Shakyamuni Buddha previous life stories (41 in total), the life story of
Je Tsongkapa (15 in total), two sets of the incarnation lineage of the Dalai
Lamas of Tibet (13 in total), the incarnation lineage of the Panchen Lamas,
the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Guhyagarbha Tantra, two different
Mahakala sets, and others. Only two sets are complete. The smallest set
has two paintings representing the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the
Guhyagarbha Tantra (Cat.no.B; HAR 2205, 2206). This is a common theme in
painting for the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

THE JONGEN-SCHLEIPER COLLECTION | 13