Footnotes

A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF THE FIFTH SAKYA TRIDZIN,
JETSUN DRAGPA GYALTSEN
ATTRIBUTED TO TSUGTOR (A. 15TH CENTURY), TIBET, CIRCA 1479

西藏 約1479年 銅鎏金五世薩迦法王扎巴堅贊像
應為珠多之作（活躍於十五世紀）

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s

This outstanding gilded bronze depicts Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216), the Fifth Tridzin (Throne Holder) of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism. Its caster, almost certainly a master artist named Tsugtor (a. 15th century) working for a Tibetan royal patron, reflects Dragpa Gyaltsen's quintessential portrait, recognizable for the shorn cut, groomed facial hair, and full-sleeved layman's cloak emblazoned with the Eight Auspicious Symbols (ashtamangala). Also regarded as the third of the Five Founding Fathers of the Sakya tradition (Jetsun Gongma Nga), Dragpa Gyaltsen is revered as a peerless tantric master believed to have conversed at times directly with tantric deities while developing many of the Sakya's core teachings (Dinwiddie (ed.), Portraits of the Masters, 2003, p. 207). As his impact in the field of tantric theory and practice would never be surpassed in the Sakya tradition, he is often represented with the same attributes and pose—crossing the vajra and ghanta before his chest—as the Primordial Buddha Vajradhara, who is considered the divine progenitor of most tantric cycles.

This magnificent portrait can be attributed to the Tsugtor, who is known to have created gilt bronzes around 1479 for Sakyong Ayi Sengge, a prince of Mustang, which at the time was a wealthy, semi-independent kingdom controlling an important trade route linking Tibet and India. This information came to light through inscriptions naming artist and patron on two bronzes studied by Amy Heller. Undoubtedly from the same workshop as the present sculpture, both bronzes depict the Fourth Abbot of Ngor monastery, Gyaltshap Kunga Wangchuk (1424-78), and were offered at Sotheby's, New York, 19 March 2008, lots 306 & 307 (HAR 12576 & 12577). Gyaltshap Kunga Wangchuk collectively spent over a decade in Mustang before passing away there in 1478. The inscriptions indicate the portraits were royally commissioned in memoriam the following year in 1479, which appears to coincide with an historical record of golden statues being made for the lama's memorial ceremonies (after Heller; see the Ngor Abbots Lineage biographies, Ngor gdan rabs nor bu phreng ba, composed c. 1700, and see also Jackson, "Sources on the Chronology and Succession of the Abbots of Ngor E-vam chos-Idan", in Berliner Indologische Studien, 1989, vol. 4/5, pp. 49-94). The two commemorative portraits appeared at auction alongside two further bronzes (lots 304 & 305; HAR 12574 & 12575), depicting Shang Kongchog Pel (1250-1317) and Dragpugpa Sonam Pel (1277-1350), that are stylistically identical to the present lot and clearly belong to the same initial set representing the lamdre lineage masters of the Sakya order.

Manifest in the present sculpture of Dragpa Gyaltsen, Tsugtor evidently drew from the Tibeto-Chinese stylistic tradition of the Yongle period (1403-24). For example, the robe's pleating over Dragpa Gyaltsen's legs, the heavy beading around the lotus base, the compact treatment of the petals with trifurcating tips, and the master's sweet, downcast expression all recall Yongle idioms, as exhibited by sculptures of Maitreya and Vajrapani in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich (Uhlig, On the Path to Enlightenment, 1995, pp. 87 & 107, nos. 42 & 59). The location of the Tibetan inscription on top of the base before the feet of Dragpa Gyaltsen also echoes the practice of engraving reign marks on imperial bronzes that are thought to have been dispatched as diplomatic gifts to prominent Tibetan monasteries. However, the chased motifs embellishing Dragpa Gyaltsen's cuffs and cloud collar, while redolent of luxurious Chinese silks, reflect a Tibetan taste for patterning the textiles in gilt bronze sculptures which was never used by early Ming imperial workshops. In both form and technique, these symbols correspond to similar patterning known definitively to have been practiced in Shigatse, Central Tibet, from the work of another identified master artist, named Sonam Gyaltsen, working for local royal patrons of the Sakya order earlier in c. 1430 (See Watt in Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2018, lot 3033). Mustang is generally not known for gilded bronzes, and both the inscriptional evidence within the Gyaltshap Kunga Wangchuk portraits and these stylistic and technical features might place Tsugtor at a workshop in Shitgatse, not Mustang, and where Ngor monastery commissioned its bronzes as well. The present Dragpa Gyaltsen, therefore, offers a rare and important ability to localize these inspired artistic exchanges between China and Tibet in the 15th century, in addition to being among the most substantial and exquisitely modelled gilt bronze portraits of a Tibetan hierarch to ever appear on the market.