AN EMBROIDERED SILK HANGING OF THE BUDDHIST PARADISE QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD |

woven with gold and multicoloured threads to the central panel with Amitayus Buddha in three mudras, representing the Past, Present and Future, each figure seated in meditation on a lotus throne, above an assembly of the Eighteen Luohan and the Guardians of the Four Directions amid scrolling clouds, all below the five characters reading wu liang shou zun fo (Amitayus, Buddha of the Eternal Life) woven in gold thread separating the sun and moon discs respectively enclosing a cockerel and a hare, and eight apsaras bearing tributes, framed by an elaborate lotus scroll border

An Austrian private collection.

The present piece belongs to a select group of sumptuously decorated thangkas produced at the imperial textile workshops at Suzhou during the Qianlong period (r. 1735-96). Depicting the Buddhas of the Three Ages in the centre, who are surrounded by apsaras, the Four Heavenly Kings and the Eighteen Luohan, thangkas of this type were placed in temples and monasteries at court for religious worship, as well as gifted to religious leaders of Tibet. Textiles such as the present were modelled after paintings by court artist Ding Guanpeng (1708-1771), such as a silk hanging scroll illustrating a related scene, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, object no. 2000.7.  Compare a similar example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, museum no. T.230-1965; one from the Pourtales collection, recently sold at Artcurial Paris, 11th June 2018, lot 141; one sold in these rooms, 8th  October 2006, lot 1080; another sold in our Paris rooms, 18th December 2009, lot 246; and a fourth example, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27th April 1997, lot 42.

Compare also a set of three embroideries of related iconography displayed on the ceiling in Le musée chinois de l'impératrice Eugénie, Château de Fontainebleau, France.