拍品编号：PMJG4262

拍品名称：药师佛（堆绣）

拍品年代：19th

拍品尺幅：106 * 55（厘米）

起拍价： 800,000 HKD

成交金额： 流拍

折合人民币：流拍

拍品类型： 堆绣

拍品地域：西藏

拍品材质：布

拍品主题：人物

拍卖公司：Bonhams（邦瀚斯）

拍卖专场：The Claude de Marteau Collection, Part IV（2023-10）

拍卖时间：2023年10月

拍卖地点：香港

原始编号：52

内容:

A SILK APPLIQUE OF BHAISHAJYAGURU
TIBET, 19TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no. 4820
270 x 140 cm (106 1/4 x 55 1/8 in.)
Footnotes
西藏 十九世紀 堆繡藥師佛唐卡

Published:
Louis P. van der Wee, "Tibetan Applique Hangings in European Collections", in The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club, Vol. 58, 1975, p. 46, fig. 8.

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s

Tibetan physicians derive their healing powers from Bhaishajyaguru, the Buddha of Medicine, who is celebrated in this very fine appliqué banner. Physical and mental well-being are also prerequisites to the demands of meditation and related Buddhist practices. Moreover, it was encounters with illness, old age, and death that awakened the young Shakyamuni to his quest for enlightenment and freedom from the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (Meyer, "Introduction: The Medical Paintings of Tibet", in Tibetan Medical Paintings, 1992, p. 2).

Bhaishajyaguru is notably identified by his sapphire-blue complexion reminiscent to that of lapis lazuli and holds an alms bowl filled with myrobalan, a potent medicinal plant. Around the early centuries of the Common Era in India, Bhaishajyaguru rose to importance as a Buddha specifically associated with healing, and by the 7th century, his worship expanded to include a large mandala of deities. Chanting his name or associated sacred sounds (dharani) is said to cause physical and mental ailments to disappear (Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, 1989, p. 41). Medicine thus became one of the five sciences (panchavidya) taught in the monastic universities of India, a tradition which was inherited by Tibetans as well as those hailing from Greco-Arab and Chinese sources.

Tibetans excelled in the arts of textile appliqué (gos Sku), whereby pieces of cut cloth are assembled and sewn in place to create a complex tableau resembling a painted picture. This 19th century example demonstrates the refinement possible when this technique is employed by a skilled master. When carefully selected silks and silk damask fabrics are interwoven together with fine embroidery, couched threads, and couched gold threads, the composition springs to life. At the center is the Medicine Buddha accompanied by his seven Buddha brothers, the bodhisattvas Manjushri and Vajrapani, the goddess Tanma Chunyi, and two protector deities (see https://www.himalayanart.org/items/304 for discussion of the Seven Buddhas of Medicine). Above him is the great Tibetan Buddhist reformer Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), whose teachings and wisdom drew deeply from the most exalted Indian traditions.

Comparable examples exist in a variety of private and public collections, including the Newark Museum (Reynolds, "From a Lost World: Tibetan Costumes and Textiles", in Orientations, March 1981, figs. 21-3) and an earlier dated silk appliqué of Ratnasambhava offered at Bonhams, Hong Kong, 29 November 2016, lot 127. Also see other comparable examples published in, Precious Deposits, Vol. 5, 2000, pp. 44-5, no. 15. The technique of appliqué was sometimes used to create exceedingly large banners that were displayed against the side of a steep hill or the wall of a monastery, to be seen in ceremonial public gatherings. At Gyantse, banners over twenty meters in length were displayed as recently as 2000 (Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Central Tibet, Vol. 2, figs. 727-34). For larger compositions, the inevitably sturdier banner in appliqué cloth was preferred over its more fragile, painted counterpart.

Bonhams would like to thank Jane Casey for her assistance in preparing this lot.