A Black Ground Thangka of Hayagriva

TIBET, 18TH CENTURY

Details

A Black Ground Thangka of Hayagriva
Tibet, 18th Century
Very finely painted depicting Hayagriva seated over his tiger mount stamping over two prostrated figures upon a variegated lotus base, the lotus overlaying an inverted triangle bearing a multi-eyed scorpion, the central figure with a horse head emerging from his flaming hair, holding aloft a sword and a skull cup and dressed in robes with cloudscrolls covered by an elephant skin, his body surrounded by a flaming red aureole and surrounded by numerous smaller retinue deities at top in aureoles with Amitayus and his consort at center, protector deites along the sides and an orange-clad monk at lower left seated upon a rooster above a rocky mountaintop, inscribed in gold on reverse in Tibetan, Executed by the hand of Situ Panchen
24½ x 17½ in. (62 x 44.5 cm.)

Lot Essay

The master painter and founder of the dPal-spungs Monastery, Situ Panchen (1700-1774), has been credited with developing a characteristic open-landscape style. Though not particularly known for black-ground painting, D. Jackson in A History of Tibetan Painting, 1996 pp.259-283, in discussing Situ Panchen's biography maintains that he was a keen observer of a multitude of painting styles that he incorporated in his own works.

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