CANTONIÈRE EN BANDES PEINTE REPRÉSENTANT LES DIVINITÉS DU BARDO TIBET, VERS XVIIIE SIÈCLECANTONIÈRE EN BANDES PEINTE REPRÉSENTANT LES DIVINITÉS DU BARDOTIBET, VERS XVIIIE SIÈCLE Himalayan Art Resources item no. 205046 52 x 200 cm (20 1/2 x 78 3/4 in.) A PAINTED STRIP VALANCE WITH BARDO DEITIES TIBET, CIRCA 18TH CENTURY 西藏 約十八世紀 彩繪中陰神祇帶狀帷幔This valance is comprised of twenty-four strips painted with six figures within circular bands. The top lines on the right and left contain images of seventeen lamas, most of whom wear hats associated with a Kagyu Buddhist tradition. In the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Guhyagarbha Tantra is considered to be the most important of all Tantras. The Terton Karma Lingpa (1326-86) is credited with the discovery of the 'treasure text' known as the Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo (known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead), a text that was read to the deceased to influence a positive, subsequent rebirth. Depictions of the peaceful and wrathful deities of the bardo are commonly presented in thangkas within mandalas in clusters of forty-two and fifty-eight (HAR 505). See a similar assembly of wrathful deities found on the North Wall of the Lukhang chapel in Lhasa photographed by Thomas Laird, published in Luczanits, 'Locating the Great Perfection,' in Orientations, Vol. 42, no. 2, March 2011, p. 111, fig. 9). Also compare with an earlier set of tsakli cards in the Rubin Museum of Art (HAR 289) and another set sold at Bonhams, New York, 14 March 2016, lot 34.Provenance:Spink & Son Ltd., London, 1990s