明 佚名 釋教三尊曼陀羅圖 軸 Mandala of Vajradhara, Manjushri and Sadakshari -Lokeshvara
Artist:
Unidentified Artist
Period:
Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
Date:
dated 1479
Culture:
China
Medium:
Tangka; ink, opaque watercolor on gold
Dimensions:
Image: 58 x 37 1/2 in. (147.3 x 95.3 cm)
Classification:
Paintings
Credit Line:
Gift of John and Evelyn Kossak, The Kronos Collections, 1985
Accession Number:
1985.392.2
Not on view
The Tibetan branch of Esoteric Buddhism, introduced into China during the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), continued to be patronized by early Ming dynasty emperors. Throughout the fifteenth century, a significant community of Tibetan lamas remained active in Beijing, the site of the former Mongol capital city, Dadu, and after 1402 the principal Ming capital.
This mandala, or cosmic diagram used in meditation, is painted in rich colors on a coarse cloth ground in the Tibetan manner, but the presence of a Chinese dedication along the lower margin as well as a number of distinctive stylistic features suggest that it was the product of an atelier in China that created images based on Tibetan prototypes. Stylistically, the mandala is related to three others, dated between 1477 and 1479, which are now in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The iconography of this mandala consists of three main deities, the Buddha Vajradhara (above), together with Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom (lower right), and Shadakshari-Lokeshvara, a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (lower left), set within a field of thirty-nine subsidiary deities. Each deity is seated on a lotus throne and framed by an ornately figured halo. Vajradhara, who grasps two vajras or thunderbolts, is further distinguished by an encircling array of the twelve auspicious Buddhist symbols.
Inscription: No artist’s inscription, signature or seal
Colophon
Unidentified Artist, 1 column in standard script, dated 1479 (on the frame, bottom center):
[Done or bestowed by owner] on the 15th day of fourth month of the 15th year of the Chenghua reign era [May 6, 1479] of the great Ming dynasty.
大明成化十五年四月十五日施。
John and Evelyn Kossak , New York (until 1985; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Secular and Sacred: Scholars, Deities, and Immortals in Chinese Art," September 10, 2005–January 8, 2006.
}}){kind=link}