A large painting depicting Shakyamuni Buddha and his life story, Qing dynasty, 18th century

Acquired in New York in the early 1960s, and thence by descent.

This fine painting with the historical Shakyamuni Buddha at the center in his classical bhumisparshamudra or earth-touching gesture, just after his moment of awakening, contains his entire life story in a single composition. The most prominent of these scenes include the prophecy of his birth, which begins with the white elephant descending from a heavenly realm on a rainbow path after which the elephant appears in a dream to his mother, Queen Maya; his birth at Lumbini from the side of his mother who holds a sala tree to the right of this scene; his miraculous ability to walk immediately after birth and the lotuses that appeared beneath his footprints; his sheltered, princely life in the kingdom of Magadha; his excelling at various sports and activities as a youth; his encounters with old age, sickness, and death outside of the palace walls; his 'Great Departure' and renunciation of worldly life to the left of the palace (which appears at the bottom center of the painting; his defeat of Mara and his retinue of demons to the right of the renunciation scene) in which he can be seen from the backside cutting his long hair before a stupa); his garnering followers and teaching scenes; and, finally, his death or parinirvana in which he depicted in a reclined posture surrounded by his closest disciples after which he is cremated (see the upper left corner) and his ashes and relics are distributed into eight parts.

The radiating rainbow nimbus surrounding the Buddha, illuminated with fine gold lines, and a deep lapis blue central body halo, along with the soft pink clouds punctuated with saw-tooth edges that surround the rainbow nimbus are directly derived from a Central Tibetan painting style adopted in 18th-century Beijing. The various golden patterns on his orange patchwork robe and the extremely thinned out flesh of the Buddha’s distended earlobes, as well as the particular approach to depicting the apsara figures or flying demi-gods who honor him and take a portion of his relics point to the Chinese origin of this painting.