EASTERN TIBET, 18TH CENTURY

Details

A PAINTING OF ARHAT VANAVASIN
EASTERN TIBET, 18TH CENTURY
Seated on a rock, his right hand raised in vitarkamudra, the gesture of teaching and his left holding a flywhisk, clad in heavy multicolored robes with a patchwork brocade over his left shoulder, the face with moustache and close-cropped hair backed by a nimbus, with three attendants to his left, a waterbank with a boat and sea creatures at the bottom, all set within a mountainous landscape
Opaque pigments and gold on textile
31 ½ x 20 ¼ in. (80 x 51.4 cm.)

Provenance

Collection of the Philosophical Research Institute, Pasadena, California
The Shelley and Donald Rubin Collection, acquired in New York, 19 March 1996
Rubin Museum of Art, gifted from the above in 2006

Literature

Himalayan Art Resource (himalayanart.org), item no. 238

Brought to you by

Sandhya Jain-Patel

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

Lot Essay

The third arhat, Vanavasin the Elder, is distinguished by the pointing gesture of his right hand and the flywhisk in his left. He is the third of the Sixteen Great Arhats. The present work would have been part of a twenty-three composition set depicting the Sixteen Great Arhats, along with Buddha Shakyamuni, the attendant Dharmatala, the patron Hvashang, and the Four Directional Guardian Kings.

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