Page 68 - CHRISTIE'S Himalayan and SOutheast Asian Works of Art 09/13/17

ANOTHER PROPERTY

640
A BLACK GROUND THANGKA OF MAGZOR GYALMO

CENTRAL TIBET, CIRCA 1800
Opaque pigments and gold on cloth
18¿ x 12√ in. (46.2 x 32.7 cm.)
$20,000-30,000
西藏中部 約1800年 黑色背景吉祥天母唐卡

PUBLISHED

P.Pal, Tibetan Paintings: A Study of Tibetan Thankas: Eleventh to Nineteenth
Centuries, London, pl.115, pp.208, 217.
Himalayan Art Resource (himalayanart.org), item no. 24339
This dynamic black thangka depicts the wrathful protector goddess, Magzor
Gyalmo. She is the ferocious manifestation of Saraswati, the goddess of
eloquence. She sits in lalitasana atop a mule who rides over a fery landscape.
She holds a vajra-tipped staf and a kapala overfowing with blood and wears
a skull tiara over her faming hair. Tsongkhapa sits among the clouds above
fanked by Gyaltsab on the left and Kedrub on the right. The animal-headed
Makaramukha and Simhamukha emerge out of the fames on either side of
the wrathful goddess. An ofering of the fve senses is at bottom center with
Nechung Chogyong on the left and a worldly god on the right. Compare the
present work with a seventeenth/eighteenth century black ground thangka
of Maning Mahakala which sold at Christie’s New York, 19 March 2013, lot
396. Both works contain a similar composition with a large wrathful fgure at
center, three lineage fgures above and protector retinue deities below fanking
sensory oferings.

Cover, P.Pal, Tibetan Paintings: A Study of Tibetan Thankas:
Eleventh to Nineteenth Centuries, London