News

Although physically kept together as a set of three paintings and displayed on the HAR website as a set of three paintings, the three compositions were not likely to have been originally intended or created as a three painting set.

The Choggyur Lingpa painting appears to be the earliest and executed in an Eastern Tibetan Kham style of painting. It has the cleanest brush strokes and the most carefully rendered portrait. Looking at the three paintings together it is important to note that Choggyur Lingpa passed away in 1870.

The painting of Jamgon Kongtrul reflects a true late 19th century Palpung monastery style of painting. Here Kongtrul is depicted as an old man with white hair and wearing extra clothing appearing as a white short sleeved shirt noticable on the proper right arm. His face shows wrinkles and the actual hand prints display clear signs of serious arthritis with the irregular shapes and twisting of the fingers. Kongtrul passed away in 1899.

The Khyentse Wangpo composition is the simplest of the three employing blocks of colour and spheres to frame the various line drawn figures. The face of Khyentse and the iconography is very standard with no attempt to show personality, portrait like features, or reflect the age of Khyentse at the time of commissioning. Khyentse passed away in 1892.

The three paintings appear to be created by three different artists at three different times. The Choggyur Lingpa is likely to have been the first and the Jamgon Kongtrul the last. It is also important to mention that all three paintings have different brocade mounts. The sizes need to be confirmed and then also considered. Since the three reside in the same location it must be assumed that they came together at some point and then over time began to be considered a set, no doubt also because of the modern printing in publications, as religious cards and posters, all three side by side, stripped of the brocade mounts.