TIBET, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

This sculpture presents Tangtong Gyalpo (c. 1361–1485), one of the most inventive and widely-revered figures in Tibetan cultural history. He wears matted hair gathered into a high chignon with loose locks cascading down the back, large round earrings, and a long, tapering beard, and bare torso seated over a flayed deerskin, reflecting his yogic discipline. Beyond his yogic practice, Tangtong Gyalpo was renowned for constructing iron bridges throughout Tibet and for developing a variety of medicinal formulas focused on healing and promoting longevity, many of which are still in use today. These achievements are represented by an iron chain held in his lowered right and the flowering vase of immortality held in his left hand.

This conflated portraiture depicting his tantric achievements, medical discoveries, and engineering feats appear in other later examples of the mahasiddha, including a thangka from the 19th century (HAR 940) and a clay figure (HAR 8340). Other comparanda dating to the fifteenth century include a gilt example and two non-gilt examples (von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Vol. II, 2001, p. 1073, pls. 276 D-E; p. 1201, pls. 327 D-E), each which share corresponding pointed beards, a wide face, elongated lips, bare torsos, and long-life vases held at the waist in the left hand.