TIBET, 19TH CENTURY

Details

A PAINTING OF HAYAGRIVA AND MARICHI
TIBET, 19TH CENTURY
The couple in embrace over prone figures on a lotus base, he with red skin, three faces surmounted by horse heads, his principle hands holding a white lotus flower and skullcup with various implements in the rest, adorned with snakes, multiple gold and jewled ornaments, a skull crown and tiger-skin skirt, she with blue skin and holding a skullcup, wearing a leopard-skin skirt and beaded ornaments, backed by the flames of pristine awareness, with red Amitayus at top left and Vaishravana at top right
Opaque pigments and gold on textile
21 x 18 ¼ in. (53.3 x 46.4 cm.)

Provenance

The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, acquired in New York, 29 August 1996
Rubin Museum of Art, gifted from the above in 2004

Literature

Himalayan Art Resource (himalayanart.org), item no. 431

Brought to you by

Sandhya Jain-Patel

sjain-patel@christies.com +1 212 636 2162

Lot Essay

Hayagriva belongs to the set known as the Eight Sadhana Sections of the Mahayoga Inner Tantras. This text was discovered by Arya Nagarjuna in a copper casket in a stupa from the Sitavana charnel ground, near present-day Bodhgaya.

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