The six-armed and three-headed red form of Manjusri holds the sword, the blue lotus, the bow and arrow, and the Prajnaparamita text, and his consort, Kesani Tara holds the stems of two blue lotus flowers. They are both seated on a lotus pedestal supported by a tiered peacock throne draped with a patterned textile. The throne is supported by lions and elephants at each corner that flank the five Panchraksha goddesses, above which is an elaborate torana with amakara, kinnara, hamsa, Garuda and nagas with ascending monkeys on either side. Ganesha and Mahakala flank the central shrine with Shadakshari and Vajradhara and Shakyamuni Buddha and Prajnaparamita within lotus mandalas above. The entire tableau is surrounded by inscribed narrative scenes, the upper register with Manjusri and Avalokiteshvara flanking the Five Transcendental Buddhas, an inscription below with donors, the Chakravartin and a Vajracharya performing puja, all flanking a troupe of musicians and dancers.
Details
- Title : SIDDHI MANJUSRI AND KESANI TARA
- Year : Nepal, 1530 - 1540
- Classification : Painting
- Medium : Distemper on cloth
- Dimension : 42 x 29 in. (107 x 74 cm.)
- Accession No : GNM_LOT 26_PUN_08
- Country/ Geo-location : Nepal
- Collection : PUNDOLE’S
- Status : LIVE AUCTION The Fine and Decorative Arts Sale (M0008) (As per NOV 2021)
- CURRENT STATUS : Passed
- ESTIMATED : ₹3,000,000 - ₹5,000,000
- PROVENANCE : Formerly in the Collection of Ernst and Angela Jucker, Ettingen, Switzerland / Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 46, no. 10.
- REGISTERED ANTIQUITY : NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM (Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale at the back of the catalogue)
- NOTE : An inscription states that the painting was consecrated on Monday the fourteenth of the dark half of Bhadra during the Purvaphalguni Naksatra and the Subha Yoga in samvat 65_ (approximately 153_) in the name of Bijaya Singh, the deceased son of Khipithima Bharo. The inscription records a donation of nine ropanis of land (a little over an acre) below Gatra for the support of ritual observance including the cooking of one hundred pathis of rice grown on the land and its distribution as alms, and that the bhiksus of Pam Bahal should read the golden Dharani. Inscriptions beneath the narrative scenes surrounding the shrine refer to the results of good and negative actions, the majority describing the latter. A note beneath the main inscription states that the consecration and 'writing' of the painting - likely referring to the writing of the inscription rather than the painting of the image - was done by Vajracharya Mayera Singh. Compare the geometric arrangement of the narrative scenes surrounding the shrine with a slightly earlier Vasudhara mandala, dated 1495, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal. A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection, Los Angeles, 1985, p. 213, P 17, color plate, p. 67. And compare the checker design of the pillars supporting the torana with a 1488 Nepalese Vajradhara paubha now in Musee Guimet, see Jeannine Auboyer, Rarities of the Musee Guimet, New York, 1975, p. 66, pl. 31. According to Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, the addition of narrative scenes in small panels surrounding the main image was an innovation by the Newari artists that appeared from the Malla period (16th century) onwards. The order of the panels was usually a 'hieratic representation of deities.' He goes on to add that what is particularly interesting about the current lot is 'a visual narrative with labels in Newari language is accommodated along the margins. The paubha has a long inscription in Newari along the bottom which when read will throw much light on this uniquely important painting.' (Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, 'The Jucker Collection: A Personal Appreciation', Sotheby's The Jucker Collection of Himalayan Paintings, New York, 2006, p. 8.)