Mark Rasmussen
International Director
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
A Private European Collection of Tibetan Thangkas
Lot 3027
A THANGKA OF VAJRABHAIRAVA TIBET, 18TH CENTURY
19 March 2018, 15:00 EDT
New YorkUS$50,000 - US$80,000
Looking for a similar item?
Our Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
A THANGKA OF VAJRABHAIRAVA
TIBET, 18TH CENTURY
Distemper on cloth.
Himalayan Art Resources item no.58529
42 1/8 x 27 1/8 in. (107 x 69 cm)
Distemper on cloth.
Himalayan Art Resources item no.58529
42 1/8 x 27 1/8 in. (107 x 69 cm)
Footnotes
西藏 十八世紀 大威德金剛唐卡
The painting's exceptional quality is reflected in the complex and highly animated poses of its many figures. Vajrabhairava is depicted with his consort Vajra Vetali. He has a central buffalo head and six profile faces, thirty-four arms, and sixteen legs. In his hands, he holds thirty-two different attributes, tantric implements, weapons, and trophies symbolizing his power to subdue the five poisons: ignorance, attachment, aversion, pride, and envy. Vajrabhairava tramples upon the bodies of the eight worldly deities, symbolizing his dominance over the life and death of all beings.
He is a manifestation of Manjushri, the fierce archetype of wisdom's triumph over death, expelling the forces adverse to law and goodness. Manjushri's three-eyed, semi-wrathful yellow head appears at the apex of Vajrabhairava's many faces. He is represented again in the upper right corner of the painting, in the peaceful form of Manjuvajra.
The imagery of Vajrabhairava's command over death is reinforced by the representation of Vajrayogini in the upper left corner and the charnel grounds in bottom register of the painting. The charnel ground is considered a potent context for Vajrayana practice, with the power to transmute the fear of death into awakening. Charnel ground visualizations are included in certain meditation practices and recorded in Tibetan tantric texts.
A landscape setting of flora, rocks, water, and hills completes the background. The visual apparatus of pine trees, cloud scrolls, Chinese architectural forms, and distant peaks behind the Buddhist temple, continue a tradition in Tibetan thangka painting that derives initially Chinese landscape styles of the late Ming dynasty (16th-17th centuries).
Rotating counter-clockwise from the upper left-hand corner are the diminutive figures of Vajrayogini, Mahasiddha Dampa Sangye, Garwa Nagpo, Yama Dharmaraja, Nechung Chogyong, and Arapachana Manjushri, with Maitreya flanked by Tsongkapa and Atisha finally at top center.
Compare with other significant examples published in Rhie & Thurman, Worlds of Transformation, New York, 1999, p.374, no.138; and Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, Rome, 1949, pl.191.
Provenance
Sotheby's, London, 12 October 1989, lot 43
Private European Collection