TIBET, XVÈME-XVIÈME SIÈCLE

Sonam Lhundrup (1456–1531), also known as Lowo Khenchen, was a prominent scholar of the Ngor tradition and abbot of Mustang monastery. The third son of Mustang’s second Dharma King, Agon Sangpo, he played a key role in preserving and transmitting Madhyamaka, Prajnaparamita, and Tantric teachings in the region. For comparable portrait sculptures of lamas, see David Weldon and Jane Casey Singer, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection, London, 1999, pl. 47. See also a 16th-century silver and copper inlaid bronze figure of Sonam Lhundrup, 20 cm, in the Zimmerman Family Collection, published in Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A.F. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet, Expanded Edition, 1996, p. 205, no. 63.