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Eleven-Faced, Thousand-Armed
Avalokiteshvara
20th Century
We commissioned this hand-painted copy of a
Western Tibet (Guge) tangka in the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Private
Collection. It was formerly in the Tucci Collection. The original is dated
second half of the 15th century.
This creation took seven months of
daily work to complete and is hand signed (very rare) by the artist
Sanjaya Maila Donu, a Newari living in the ancient city of Patan in the
Nepal Himalayas.
Sized pigments on cotton
Mounted in a Tibetan silk brocade
frame
Painting with silk brocade:
5' 5 1/2" high
X 3' 11 3/4" wide.
$3200.00
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| "This supremely
beautiful painting of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezi
to Tibetans), is one of the finest known in all Tibetan art. It portrays
this incarnation of inconceivable mercy in his most powerful royal form,
with eleven faces, one thousand eyes, and one thousand arms. He is
saluted in a common Tibetan prayer as 'The holy Avalokiteshvara, who has
the thousand arms of the thousand universal monarchs, the thousand eyes
of the thousand Buddhas of this good eon, and who manifests whatsoever
is appropriate to tame whomsoever!' "
Robert A.F. Thurman
Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Department of Religion
Columbia University, New York
From the book Wisdom and
Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet,
©
1991, Harry N. Abrams,
Inc., pg. 327. |
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