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Padmasambhava on His Copper-Colored Mountain
second layer overall
second layer overall

Padmasambhava on His Copper-Colored Mountain

CultureTibetan
Date18th century
MediumThangka; color on cotton, mounted on silk brocade
DimensionsImage: 28 1/4 × 19 5/8 inches (71.76 × 49.85 cm)
Mount: 52 × 35 inches (132.08 × 88.9 cm)
Framed: 69 × 47 3/4 × 4 3/4 inches (175.26 × 121.29 × 12.07 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Joseph H. Heil
Object number74-36/3
On View
Not on view
Exhibition History

Tantric Buddhist Art, China House Gallery, New York, March 14–May 24, 1974, no. 49 as The Copper-Colored Mountain of Padmasambhava.

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

Padmasambhava’s life story has been transformed into a mythological narrative that is frequently depicted in Tibetan art. This thangka depicts Padmasambhava’s famed journey to the paradise of the Copper-Colored Mountain. This mythical island was inhabited by rakshasas, or demon-like beings. Padmasambhava sought to convert them to Buddhism. Here, you see him teaching from the grand palace at the summit of the mountain, surrounded by devotees, deities, attendants, and demonic converts.

Look closely and you will find the landscape is filled with wild animals, figures meditating in caves, and rakshasas wreaking havoc amongst the dead in charnel fields. Padmasambhava is believed to be alive today, bringing evil-doers to the Buddhist path in the Copper-Colored Mountain paradise.

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

Eleanor Olson, Tantric Buddhist Art, exh. cat. (New York:  China Institute in America, 1974), 37-38, 95, pl. 49, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 396, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 279, fig. 10, (repro.).

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.