Khara mukha Chakrasamvara Mandala distemper on cloth Tibet

The blue donkey-faced emanation of Samvara in union with his prajna, the donkey-headed form of Vajravarahi, surrounded by concentric circles with animal-headed gods and goddesses within a diamond wheel structure between four palace gates, ringed by the eight charnel fields divided by rivers, and with a multi-coloured flaming border, all against a green scrollwork field with white Samvara and Vajrayogini below and two monks above, the upper register including Vajradhara with Indian and Tibetan adepts, Narodakini, Maitridakini, Vajravarahi, Arthasadhan Varahi and Chinnamunda Vajravarahi in the lower register with Chitipati and two forms of blue Mahakala, an invocation to Chakrasamvara inscribed below, the painting with blue silk fishtail mounts, and with original red painted wood roller and veils.

Hugo E. Kreijger, Tibetan Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 2001, p. 160, no. 64

Remaining in pristine condition this exquisite mandala epitomises the jubilant Sakya style of the sixteenth century, full of animation and colour and decorative device. Compare a set of sixteenth century Sakya paintings - notably the red on red licks of flame behind the central deities, and the lamas’ lotus pedestals against the green scrollwork fields – one a Takkiraja now in the Museum der Kulturen, Basel; see Essen and Thingo, 1990, pp.162-3, no. I-101, a Kurukulla in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; see Pal, 1975, p. 83, no. 48, and a Ganapati; see Sotheby’s, New York, March 26^th, 2003, lot 60.

Kharamukha Chakrasamvara, the animal-headed form of Samvara, is rarely depicted in Tibetan painting; for a detailed analysis of the iconography of another rare sixteenth century Sakya mandala of the deity in the Zimmerman Family Collection; see Huntington and Bangdel, 2003, p. 304, no. 85.