Protective Goddess in Peaceful and Wrathful Form

This painting is a wonderful example of later central-Tibetan painting, essentially the continuation of a style known as New Menri under the patronage of the Dalai lama and his court. The deities are set into a landscape with the horizon in the upper half of the painting and snow-capped mountains in the foreground, as if one were looking at Tibet from the south. The flower foliage flanking the teachers in the upper area and the clouds with colored fringes surrounding the central deity’s halo are typical for this style. Particularly remarkable are the gilded areas, in which the gold is applied with extremely sophisticated detail in relief. Although placed firmly in the context of the Geluk Tibetan Buddhist tradition—the two teachers to the sides likely representing the Eighth Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso (1758–1804), and the Fourth/Seventh Panchen Lama, Lobzang Tenpa Nyima (1782–1853)—the central goddess and the deity below her have yet to be identified. Both riding a yak, they might represent two modes of the same goddess. The peaceful form is white, wears traditional Tibetan dress, and holds a divination arrow and a mirror, while the wrathful form is of dark-red color, wears both gold and bone jewelry and a yak skin cape, and holds a flayed human skin and a dagger.