Skip to main content
recto overall
Tsongkhapa with Scenes from his Life
recto overall
recto overall

Tsongkhapa with Scenes from his Life

CultureTibetan
Date19th century
MediumThangka; colors on cotton and mounted on brocade
DimensionsUnframed: 26 × 17 3/8 inches (66.04 × 44.13 cm)
Framed: 58 5/8 × 33 3/4 × 1 1/2 inches (148.91 × 85.73 × 3.81 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Joseph H. Heil
Object number74-36/19
On View
Not on view
Exhibition History

Sacred Images of Tibet, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, August 20–October 15, 1989, no cat.

Teachers of Enlightenment:  Traditions in Tibetan Buddhism, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 11, 2019–May 10, 2020, no cat.

Gallery Label
Great Tibetan Buddhist teachers were celebrated through narrative paintings that detailed important scenes of an individual’s life. This thangka (scroll painting) is dedicated to Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa order. Tsongkhapa, depicted in the center, is surrounded by narrative scenes that explore different moments in his life as a student, a teacher, and as a recipient of visions and teachings from Manjushri, the great bodhisattva of wisdom. Tsongkhapa is believed to be an emanation of Manjushri. This painting is based on a series of woodblock prints created in the Tashilumpo monastery in Tibet in the mid-1700s.
Provenance

Joseph H. Heil (1916–1974), New York, by 1974 [1];

Bequeathed by Heil to John M. Crawford, Jr. (1913–1988), New York, 1974 [2];

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1974 [3].

[1] Joseph H. Heil was an artist, designer, and collector living in New York.  He was well-known for his Art Nouveau and Tiffany glass collections with several mentions in The New York Times. (See “Glass Décor Shines Anew In a Revival,” March 28, 1958, p. 20;  “New Old Art Nouveau,” October 11, 1964, p. SM116; “An Art Nouveau Dealer’s Story,” December 23, 1979, p. D45.)

[2] A letter from Freda B. Stolz to Laurence Sickman, NAMA director, August 28, 1974, NAMA curatorial files, informs the museum that Heil’s collection was bequeathed to Crawford with the intent that it one day be “eventually housed in a suitable museum of his choice.”

[3] NAMA archives includes correspondence between Crawford and Laurence Sickman, NAMA curator and director, between 1959 and 1973.  Crawford first donated Asian objects in 1960 and into the 1970’s.  Sickman, in collaboration with the Pierpont Morgan Library, helped curate an exhibition of Crawford’s collection in the early 1960’s exhibited at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, Fogg Art Museum, Boston, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO.  See Laurence Sickman, Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Collection of John M. Crawford, Jr., exh. cat. (New York:  Pierpont Morgan Library, 1962).

Published References

No published references known at this time.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.