TIBET, XIIIE-XIVE SIÈCLE

A Kagyu lama with enlarged ears hair sits with crossed legs on an ornate double-lotus throne. He extends his right arm in the same gesture that affirmed the Buddha's enlightenment (bhumisparsha mudra). His portrayal is a convergence of the Historical Buddha's enlightenment under the bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India, and his own, dissolving boundaries of time and space to connect a lineage of great Tibetan masters with the Buddhist homeland. Many Kagyu portraits of Central Tibet follow this iconographic convention, as their principal lineage holder, Phagmodrupa (1110-70), was himself considered a Second Buddha.

The visual rhetoric used to portray the lama parallels others produced by the early Kagyu orders, particularly those connected to Phagmodrupa (1110–1170). While uninscribed, the type strongly recalls Jigten Sumgön Rinchen Pel (1143–1217), and may be understood within the milieu of Drigung Kagyu portraiture shaped by his lineage and legacy. The carefully articulated robe, with its rounded edge and curved hem along the chest corresponds to an earlier representative style of monastics, linking the sculpture to Central Tibetan production of the late 13th or early 14th century. For a similar portrait depicting Rinchen Pel, see U. von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, Vol II, p. 1037, no. 258B and HAR 83226.