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Lot Essay
This vivid and spectacular painting of the Buddhist protector deity, Chaturbhuja Mahakala (‘The Great Black One with Four Arms’), is an exceptional illustration of the Tibetan black-ground painting tradition. With its fiery reds and oranges and rich hues of green and blues contrasted against the matte black ground, the painting exemplifies the tradition as it approaches its apotheosis in the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.
At its center sits the ferocious Chaturbhuja Mahakala, his eyes bulging and his mouth agape with lolling tongue and bared fangs. In his lower hands, he holds a heart-shaped coconut and a blood-filled kapala (skull cup), and in his upper hands he holds aloft a flaming sword and khatvanga staff tipped with a trident. His torso is wrapped with writhing snakes and garlanded with a sinewy necklace of severed heads, while a tiger skin covers his thighs. A five-pointed skull crown sits before his wild mane of hair, and his overall form is backed by an aureole of flames. To the left and right of Mahakala are eight animal-faced wrathful female retinue figures as found on the mandala of Chaturbhuja Mahakala; all clutch curved knives and skull cups, are clad in leopard-skin skirts, and most are backed by cloud clusters. Below, from left to right, are Kakasyamukha (‘The Raven-Faced One’), Simhamukha (‘The Lion-Faced One’), and Chandika, the consort of Chaturbhuja Mahakala, depicted red in color, and a number of smaller retinue figures, including two monkeys standing on their hands and supporting offering bowls with their feet.
At the top center of the painting, Chakrasamvara strides in alidhasana and holds his consort, Vajravarahi. On either side of Chakrasamvara are two seated figures, each identified by inscription: at top left, depicted with an ushnisha and backed by a halo with writhing snakes, is Arya Nagarjuna, an Indian monk of roughly the first or second century CE, and an important lineage figure. In the top right, wearing a red pandita hat, sits Gvalo, a Tibetan lama and another important lineage figure. Another black-ground painting from the collection of Senator Theodore Francis Green, now in a private collection, and almost certainly from the same set as the present painting, depicts Chakrasamvara at center and Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo and Taklung Tangpa Tashi Pel in the top left and right corners, respectively, helping to identify the set as a belonging to Taklung Kagyu lineage.
Of the three dominant painting styles of the eighteenth century, the present work most closely follows the Khyenri style, originated by Khyentse Chenmo of Gongkar Chode in Central Tibet. Aspects of the Khyenri style, all apparent in the present work, include the open, uncrowded background, clouds rendered in multiple colors, and stylized and schematic flame mandorlas. See, for example, a non-black-ground painting of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the collection of the Museum der Kulteren, Basel, illustrated by D. Jackson in A Revolutionary Artist of Tibet, Seattle, 2016, p. 53, fig. 2.10, and on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 3314487, and closely identified with the Khyenri style by Jackson. Compare the palette and painting style with a black-ground painting of Danda Mahakala in the collection of Shelley and Donald Rubin, illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 22: the treatment of the swirling clouds in vibrant hues of green and blue are closely related in both paintings, and the delicately painted golden foliate scroll on the cloak of the Danda Mahakala mirrors the circular ribbon surrounding the face of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the present work. See, also, a black ground painting of Mahakala Panjarnata, sold at Christie's New York, 20 March 2019, lot 666; while stylistically different from the present painting, it demonstrates the vivacity of the black ground painting tradition in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Senator Theodore Francis Green (1867-1966) was governor of the state of Rhode Island from 1933-1937, and served as the United States senator for Rhode Island from 1937-1961. At his retirement at the age of ninety-three, he was the oldest sitting United States senator in history, a record which was only surpassed by Senator Strom Thurmond, who served until his death at 100. Green, a lifelong bachelor from a wealthy New England family, was an avid collector of Asian art, especially paintings from China and Japan, many of which were sold as part of his estate across four auctions at Sotheby Parke Bernet in 1967 and 1968. The remainder of his collection was sold by his nephew, Robert C. Green, Jr.; a collection of Korean tile rubbings originally from the collection of Theodore Francis Green, accessioned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 68.434.9), bear his handwritten description and inventory number, which matches the handwriting and inventory system of a tag found on the present work.
At its center sits the ferocious Chaturbhuja Mahakala, his eyes bulging and his mouth agape with lolling tongue and bared fangs. In his lower hands, he holds a heart-shaped coconut and a blood-filled kapala (skull cup), and in his upper hands he holds aloft a flaming sword and khatvanga staff tipped with a trident. His torso is wrapped with writhing snakes and garlanded with a sinewy necklace of severed heads, while a tiger skin covers his thighs. A five-pointed skull crown sits before his wild mane of hair, and his overall form is backed by an aureole of flames. To the left and right of Mahakala are eight animal-faced wrathful female retinue figures as found on the mandala of Chaturbhuja Mahakala; all clutch curved knives and skull cups, are clad in leopard-skin skirts, and most are backed by cloud clusters. Below, from left to right, are Kakasyamukha (‘The Raven-Faced One’), Simhamukha (‘The Lion-Faced One’), and Chandika, the consort of Chaturbhuja Mahakala, depicted red in color, and a number of smaller retinue figures, including two monkeys standing on their hands and supporting offering bowls with their feet.
At the top center of the painting, Chakrasamvara strides in alidhasana and holds his consort, Vajravarahi. On either side of Chakrasamvara are two seated figures, each identified by inscription: at top left, depicted with an ushnisha and backed by a halo with writhing snakes, is Arya Nagarjuna, an Indian monk of roughly the first or second century CE, and an important lineage figure. In the top right, wearing a red pandita hat, sits Gvalo, a Tibetan lama and another important lineage figure. Another black-ground painting from the collection of Senator Theodore Francis Green, now in a private collection, and almost certainly from the same set as the present painting, depicts Chakrasamvara at center and Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo and Taklung Tangpa Tashi Pel in the top left and right corners, respectively, helping to identify the set as a belonging to Taklung Kagyu lineage.
Of the three dominant painting styles of the eighteenth century, the present work most closely follows the Khyenri style, originated by Khyentse Chenmo of Gongkar Chode in Central Tibet. Aspects of the Khyenri style, all apparent in the present work, include the open, uncrowded background, clouds rendered in multiple colors, and stylized and schematic flame mandorlas. See, for example, a non-black-ground painting of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the collection of the Museum der Kulteren, Basel, illustrated by D. Jackson in A Revolutionary Artist of Tibet, Seattle, 2016, p. 53, fig. 2.10, and on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 3314487, and closely identified with the Khyenri style by Jackson. Compare the palette and painting style with a black-ground painting of Danda Mahakala in the collection of Shelley and Donald Rubin, illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 22: the treatment of the swirling clouds in vibrant hues of green and blue are closely related in both paintings, and the delicately painted golden foliate scroll on the cloak of the Danda Mahakala mirrors the circular ribbon surrounding the face of Chaturbhuja Mahakala in the present work. See, also, a black ground painting of Mahakala Panjarnata, sold at Christie's New York, 20 March 2019, lot 666; while stylistically different from the present painting, it demonstrates the vivacity of the black ground painting tradition in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Senator Theodore Francis Green (1867-1966) was governor of the state of Rhode Island from 1933-1937, and served as the United States senator for Rhode Island from 1937-1961. At his retirement at the age of ninety-three, he was the oldest sitting United States senator in history, a record which was only surpassed by Senator Strom Thurmond, who served until his death at 100. Green, a lifelong bachelor from a wealthy New England family, was an avid collector of Asian art, especially paintings from China and Japan, many of which were sold as part of his estate across four auctions at Sotheby Parke Bernet in 1967 and 1968. The remainder of his collection was sold by his nephew, Robert C. Green, Jr.; a collection of Korean tile rubbings originally from the collection of Theodore Francis Green, accessioned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. 68.434.9), bear his handwritten description and inventory number, which matches the handwriting and inventory system of a tag found on the present work.