SINO-TIBETAN WORK - Lot 114

SINO-TIBETAN WORK QIANLONG period (1736-1795) Thangka, tempera on canvas, presumed portrait of the Panchen Lama, Lobsang Palden Yeshe (blobzang Dpal-ldan Ye-shes) (1738-1780). The Lama is portrayed in a steep, verdant landscape. Shrouded in luminous circles, he stands in vajraparyankasana on a lotus resting on a throne adorned with vajra friezes and caryatid lions. A canopy of chased bronze and wind-blown ribbons crowns him. Dressed in Tibetan style, he wears a red chos-gos and the yellow hat of the Gelug school of pandits. In front of him, a luxurious Ningxia carpet adorned with vegetal motifs and lions, and a kang table covered with brocades. On it rest precious ritual objects: kapala, vajra and ghanta, gilded bronze incense burner, jade bowl, copper jug and lacquer box. (Stains, tears, missing parts). Dim. 167 x 64 cm. Framed. This portrait may have been painted on the occasion of the lama's visit to the Qianlong court for the emperor's 70th birthday. This visit was the occasion for a lavish campaign of commissions, the most famous of which was the erection of the Xumi Fushou monastery, built on the model of Tashilhunpo, to house the Panchen Lama and his retinue. These commissions included precious ritual objects given by the lama to the emperor or by the emperor to the lama, and numerous portraits of the two great men, dressed in Chinese or Tibetan style. Although idealized in an unchanging youthfulness and deep meditative state, the face shows features peculiar to the 6th Panchen Lama that can be seen in other portraits, such as the one in the ART D'ASIE Palace Museum showing the lama in Chinese court dress. his upper lip is thicker than his lower lip, and his nose is particularly blunt (ill. 1). The painting is astonishingly naturalistic for such a subject. Normally ornamental elements are rendered with great sobriety: the petals of the throne are not sculpted with the usual scrolls, and the clouds, which still feature small scrolls, no longer reproduce the exact shape of the ruyi so clearly drawn in the thangkas of divinities commissioned by the Emperor to decorate the Xumi Fushou hall (1). The nimbus is not animated by flames, but simply represented by a discoloration surrounding the lama, evoking its luminance. The carpet, depicted in "Western" perspective, evokes the mossiness of wool and silk yarns and contrasts with the typically Chinese landscape of blue and green mountains against which the llama stands out. This mountainous This mountainous backdrop, evocative of the paradise theorized by Lobsang Yeshe, Shambala, is singularly sober, stripped of the celestial population that most often inhabits these thangkas, monastic lineages, invocations or incarnations. This simplicity and naturalism could be the result of the Italian Jesuit father Giuseppe Castiglione's passage to the emperor's court. Castiglione was sent as a painter to the Qianlong court, and his hand was known to have been influenced by Flemish artists. Castiglione cultivated the art of portraiture at court, influencing the entire genre. This rare portrait contrasts with the thangkas commissioned commissioned during this historic diplomatic visit, known and recorded today by the inscriptions that characterize them. Perhaps then, it was not intended for the Xumi Fushou monastery itself, but to honor the memory of the Panchen Lama, who died of smallpox in Peking a few months after his arrival, much to the dismay of the emperor. (1) Bartholomew, Terese Tse, Chapter 7: "Thangkas for the Qianlong Emperor's Seventieth Birthday" in Cultural Intersections in Later Chinese Buddhism, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, p. 170-188), Fig. 7.3.