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Lot Essay
The painting formed part of a larger serie of at least eight mandala thang.kas, all probably based on the Vajravali text. This text is part of a larger group of tantric texts and explains the visualization and initiation of the various gods to the student, as instrument to help them on the Path to Enlightment. Various similar rendered mandalas are known, for instance in the Zimmerman and the Museum of Philadelphia collections. They are all painted in the same style, and are of the same high quality as the one under discussion. They are all executed around A.D. 1400 according to an inscription.
Of this small group there is only one thang.ka identical to the one under review, except of course for its depicted deities. This painting belongs to Stella Kramrisch's bequest to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is published by dr. P. Pal (Orientations, January 1995, pp. 59 and 63). When dr. Pal the Kramrisch mandala published, he suggested that her painting belonged to the same serie as the Zimmerman ones. As dr. Pal was unfamiliar with this painting his suggestion was logic. Obvious this presumption is now ready for revision. As both mandala paintings are so strikingly similar, we believe that both belong to another vajravali mandala serie than the Zimmerman ones. Unfortunately it is impossible to identify all deities without the relevant textual sources. Regardless its right identification the painting is superbly rendered and its details executed with an extraordinary precision. Especially the eight cemeteries are painted with imagination and humour, although its subject is rather gruesome. In between the small figures one can trace white bones and skeletons strewn over the dark-blue background.
Altogether one may say that this thang.ka is an important addition to our knowledge of the Sa.skya.pa mandala painting tradition.
Of this small group there is only one thang.ka identical to the one under review, except of course for its depicted deities. This painting belongs to Stella Kramrisch's bequest to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is published by dr. P. Pal (Orientations, January 1995, pp. 59 and 63). When dr. Pal the Kramrisch mandala published, he suggested that her painting belonged to the same serie as the Zimmerman ones. As dr. Pal was unfamiliar with this painting his suggestion was logic. Obvious this presumption is now ready for revision. As both mandala paintings are so strikingly similar, we believe that both belong to another vajravali mandala serie than the Zimmerman ones. Unfortunately it is impossible to identify all deities without the relevant textual sources. Regardless its right identification the painting is superbly rendered and its details executed with an extraordinary precision. Especially the eight cemeteries are painted with imagination and humour, although its subject is rather gruesome. In between the small figures one can trace white bones and skeletons strewn over the dark-blue background.
Altogether one may say that this thang.ka is an important addition to our knowledge of the Sa.skya.pa mandala painting tradition.