Details
- Title : DEITIES OF THE BARDO
- Year : 19th Century
- Classification : Painting
- Medium : Distemper on cloth
- Dimension : 44 2/3 x 27 1/3 in. (113.5 x 69.5 cm.)
- Accession No : GNM_LOT 25_PUN_21
- Country/ Geo-location : Nepal
- Collection : PUNDOLE’S
- Status : PASSED: LIVE AUCTION The Fine Arts Sale (M0007) (as per DEC 2021)
- ESTIMATED : ₹1,000,000 - ₹1,500,000
- PROVENANCE : Formerly in the Collection of Ernst and Angela Jucker, Ettingen, Switzerland Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 96, no. 35.
- REGISTERED ANTIQUITY : NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM (Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale at the back of the catalogue.
- NOTES : This rare Bardo scene includes several winged Herukas and numerous animal-headed deities. The arrangement of the Herukas is extremely unusual, 'particularly the scalloped aureole and central three images.' The donor family is shown below flanking a coiled dragon clutching jewels. The Bardo is a Tibetan Buddhist concept which describes the journey of the dead to one of the six different worlds (those of the gods, titans, tormented spirits, humans, animals and hell) into which they will be reborn. This journey takes forty-nine days and is described in The Book of the Dead and read out by a lama within two weeks of the death. The Book of the Dead vividly narrates the encounters between the deceased and a series of wrathful and benign deities, which are in principal, unread reflections of his own spirit. The current lot represents the visual depictions of these encounters, and was probably used during the reading of the Bardo text. (Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 96.) Although there are several Tibetan features in the paubha, including the borders which imitate the Chinese fabric mounts of Tibetan paintings of the period, its Newari origin can be confirmed due to the presence of the donor in the lower register.