Cleveland Museum of Art
Seated Amitabha with Attendants
- Date
- c. 1100s
- Medium
- Gum tempera and ink on sized cotton
- Culture
- India, Western Himalayas, Lahul and Spiti, Tabo Monastery
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 161704
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The red Buddha of the West, Amitabha, seated in meditation on his throne, is flanked by bodhisattvas. Above are two rows of monks who transmit his teachings, and along the bottom is a row of six adepts, skilled practitioners of magic and the recitation of mantras to reach enlightenment quickly. In front of his throne are the three flaming jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, his teaching ( dharma ), and the spiritual community ( sangha ). Its unfinished state reveals the fluid and accomplished ink drawing delineating all the forms. This painting is one of the earliest surviving thangkas—devotional Buddhist paintings on cloth. It is from the region ruled by the Guge kings of western Tibet from the 900s to 1600s, now partially within the national borders of India.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Provenance
- ?–2000: (Robert H. Ellsworth, Ltd., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 2000–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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