A CARVED AND POLYCHROME WOOD BOOK COVER TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY |

the inner face carved and painted with three trilobate shrines with lotus flower bases featuring Shakyamuni at centre seated in vajraparyankasana with right hand in bhumisparshamudra flanked by a monk to his right and a bodhisattva to his left, amrita vases either side supporting Vajrapani to the left and a vajra to the right, with a seated monk and Shadakshari Avalokiteshvara above, the four-armed Prajnaparamita in the shrine to the left with principal hands in dhyanamudra and holding the vajra and sutra in her upper hands, flanked by two standing bodhisattvas and Manjusri above, Milarepa (1040-1123) in the shrine to the right flanked by two standing monks, a triratna above flanked by two pandita wearing red caps with long lappets, all set amongst scrolling vine and contained within a stepped rectangular border with three sets of holes drilled along the upper edge for the attachment of a veil, now missing, the outer face of the cover with astamangala carved and painted within a foliate background Himalayan Art Resources item no. 18453.

Amy Heller, Tibetan Art: Tracing the Development of Spritual Ideals and Art in Tibet, Milan, 1999, cat. no. 98.

The inner face of this rare and unusual book cover retains the majority of its original gold and polychrome with a rich and lustrous patina of age overall, and is one of the only known to feature the great Tibetan poet and yogin Milarepa (1040-1123). Compare the style of a fourteenth or early fifteenth century book cover, in Kathryn H. Selig Brown, Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection, Munich, London, New York, 2012, cat. 44.