Provenance:
Paul F. Walter Collection, New York, acquired in 1974
Published:
Jeff Watt, Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 8005
A significant development in the history of Tibetan painting occurred during the sixteenth century with the introduction of this style of golden canvas (serthang) with elegant black and red line drawing and a minimum of color. Amitabha, the Buddha of the Western Pure Land (Sukhavati), is depicted in this example seated beneath a parasol (chattra) with Avalokiteshvara and bodhisattvas to his right and Vajrapani and arhats to his left.
A Buddha is seated at a Chinese-style temple in each corner, with Bhaishajyaguru accompanied by sun and moon bodhisattvas Suryabhaskara and Chandrabhaskara top right, Sarvavid Vairochana top left, and Sakyamuni Buddha at the lower left and right among bodhisattvas, arhats, and a dancer with a troupe of musicians. A Tibetan hierarch and his meditation deity Chakrasamvara are depicted against a mountainous landscape above. Amitabha’s lotus-flower seat with scrolling tendrils emerges from cosmic waters below: this scrolling vine motif on a red background evokes the Nepalese aesthetic depicted in Newar artists’ sketchbooks,[1] Nepalese paubha,[2] and works done by Nepalese artists for Tibetan, especially Sakya-order, patrons.[3] The temples in the corners of the painting are tiled in the Chinese manner, like the roofs at the Sakya monastery of Shalu.[4] Verses and mantras in Tibetan uchen are inscribed verso.
Two stylistically similar works from another serthang series depict Hevajra,[7] the principal meditation deity of the Sakyapa, and Sakya Throne Holder, Lotsawa Jampai Dorje (1485-1533).[8] The latter has a terminus post quem of 1496, the date of Jampai Dorje’s accession.[9] Margins on both are painted with a floral motif on red, typical of Nepalese works for Sakya patrons in the sixteenth century such as the Kurukulla in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,[10] establishing a sixteenth-century date for the two works.
Close stylistic similarities between the pair of Sakya thangkas and this important Tibetan gold Amitabha suggest it, too, was a Sakya commission dating to the sixteenth century, possibly from the same atelier. Evocative elements of Nepalese design indicate it was painted either by a Newar master or by one well versed in Nepalese traditions.
1 Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal, Los Angeles, 1985, p. 157, fig. D5a
2 Ibid., p. 61, pl. P8
3 Steven M. Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Painting from Central Tibet, Metropolitn Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, New York, 1998, pp. 152-153, cat. no. 41
4 Ceramic tiled roofs were added during renovation by Yuan (1279-1368) court artists trained in the school of Nepalese master Aniko (1244-1306), see Roberto Vitali, Early Temples of Central Tibet, London, 1990, pp. 105-112
5 James C. Y. Watt and Denise Patry Leidy, Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China, New York, 2005, p. 89, pl. 36
6 Ibid., p. 90
7 Carlton Rochell Ltd., Faces of Tibet: The Wesley and Carolyn Halpert Collection, exh. cat., New York, 2003, cat. no. 8
8 Watt, op. cit., no. 89148
9 Buddhist Digital Resource Center, P461
10 Pratapaditya Pal, Nepal: Where the Gods are Young, Asia Society exhibition catalogue, New York, 1975, p. 66, pl. 48
