Although early in its history Tibetan art was predominantly oriented toward India, Tibetan culture both influenced and absorbed successive Chinese artistic traditions. These connections were particularly close during periods when the emperor who ruled China adopted Tibetan Buddhism and invited Tibetan teachers to court.
Hence Chinese imperial workshops adopted Tibetan Buddhist artistic conventions, and Tibet became a repository of Chinese art. These Chinese objects collected in Tibet gradually inspired Tibetan artists to adopt certain Chinese artistic conventions, such as landscape, into Tibetan painting.
Mongolians were intimately involved in Tibetan affairs during the Mongol Empire (ca. 1206-1368), when they ruled both Tibet and China. Later, with the rise of the Geluk School, Mongolians directly aligned with branches of Tibetan Buddhism and converted to the religion. The Buddhist art of Mongolia was thus similar to that of Tibet but distinctive in certain subjects, materials, and styles.
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Du Jinsheng Silk Factory, Maojiabu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
ca. 1922-1937
Tibetan Buddhism played a prominent role in the courts of the Mongolian Yuan (1279–1638), Chinese Ming (1368–1644), and Manchu Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, resulting in the creation of Tibetan Buddhist art in Chinese workshops. Here a Tibetan composition has been created in the Chinese luxury medium of silk embroidery. It is based on a seventeenth-century composition created by the founder of the New Menri painting tradition, Choying Gyatso (active ca. 1640s1660s), in Central Tibet and widely disseminated through woodblock prints in the eighteenth century. The black Tibetan and Chinese inscriptions at the bottom record that it was produced in a Chinese silk factory in Hangzhou, located on the east coast of China. Knowing the years of operation of that factory, we can date this piece to between 1922 and 1937.
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