著录:出版 J. Estournel：〈About the 18 stupas and other treasures once at the Densatil monastery〉, asianart.com，2020年，图68 拍品描述:来源 私人珍藏，1998年7月26日入藏 This richly gilt and heavily cast plaque, depicting an integrated nimbus and aureole surrounded by a multitude of Amitabha Buddha images on its frontal panel and two female musicians on its side panel, almost certainly comes from the one of the great tashi gomang stupas at the former monastery of Densatil in south-central Tibet. The monastery of Densatil, established southeast of Lhasa in 1179, housed perhaps the most spectacular achievement of Himalayan bronze casting in all of Tibet. Its eight tashi gomang (Many doors of Auspiciousness) stupas, each possibly up to five meters high, were arranged in tiers completely covered with gilt-bronze plaques and bedecked with a multitude of freestanding gilt-bronze Buddhist figures, an enormous display of the whole pantheon of Tibetan Buddhist deities, expertly crafted by the finest Newar artists and local craftsmen. Tragically destroyed in the second half of the twentieth century, all that remains now are a handful of photographs taken by the Italian Pietro Francesco Mele (who visited the site with the famed Tibetologist Guiseppe Tucci in 1948) and a small group of salvaged fragments which have been preserved in private collections and museums. Upon visiting the remote and immaculately preserved monastery in 1948, Tucci described the tashi gomang stupas as smothered with a wealth of carvings and reliefs that knew no limits. The whole Olympus of Mahayana seemed to have assembled on those monuments. In the photographs of Mele (particularly the photograph of the southeastern side of a tashi gomang stupa and the eastern side of the tashi gomang stupa that stood to the left of the five stupas along the eastern wall of the main hall at Densatil, illustrated by O. Czaja and A. Proser in Golden Visions of Densatil: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, New York, 2014, pp. 36-39) similarly formed plaques to the present lot are clearly visible on the fourth tier of the tashi gomang, known as the Tier of Buddhas, backing images of the tathagata buddhas Akshobhya. The L-shaped form of the plaque, with only two decorated sides, followed the contours of the tashi gomang, which was stepped and recessing backwards from the main image at the center of each tier. The Tier of Buddhas sat directly above the Tier of Offering Goddesses, which contained plaques with images of offering goddesses which have been more ubiquitous at auction, such as a gilt-bronze frieze with offering goddesses sold at Christie’s New York, 13 September 2017, lot 626 for US$396,500, or more recently, a gilt-copper alloy panel with offering goddesses sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 2 December 2021, lot 1017 for HK$3,000,000. Plaques backing images of buddhas seem to be far more rare than the offering goddesses plaques; two examples reside in the collection of the Museo d’Arte Orientale in Turin; one was offered at Sotheby’s Paris, 12 December 2013, lot 216; and two reside in private collections, all illustrated by J. Estournel in About the 18 stupas and other treasures once at the Densatil monastery, on asianart.com, figs. 47, 48, 109, 107 and 171, respectively. Two larger buddha niche plaques, likely backing one of the central buddha images on the Tier of Buddhas, are known, with one offered at Christie’s New York, 23 March 1999, lot 111 and another illustrated by Czaja and Proser in ibid., p. 45, fig. 20. Estournel posits that the present plaque can stylistically be associated with the fourth tashi gomang, constructed around 1386, based on the shape of the nimbus/aureole, and the number of tiers of buddhas surrounding the nimbus. Given that the diminutive buddha images depict Amitabha, Estournel surmises this plaque once backed an image of Amitabha and as such would have been from the western side of the fourth tashi gomang. A freestanding image of seated Amitabha would have likely sat in front of the present plaque – see, for example, a gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha sold at Bonhams New York, 17 March 2014, lot 16. Densatil Monastery The site of Densatil was established as a hermitage in the twelfth century by the esteemed Kagyu master and teacher, Dorje Gyalpo (1110-1170), a disciple of Gampopa Sonam Rinchen (1070-1153), himself a disciple of the famed poet, Milarepa (1040-1123). After the death of his master, Gampopa, Dorje Gyalpo withdrew from civilization in search of a quiet locale for meditation. He eventually settled in an area near the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River named Phagmodru (Sow’s Crossing), and as such he was later known by the epithet Phagmo Drupa (One from Phagmodru), a name also given to the entire lineage and religious house that he founded. Phagmo Drupa’s teachings drew a considerable following, although he and his disciples lived simply in thatched huts high on the slopes above the Tsangpo. It was only after Phagmo Drupa’s death that his two most important disciples, Taglung Tangpa Tashi Pel and Jigten Gompo, the founders of Taglung Monastery and Drigung Monastery, respectively, ordered the construction of a permanent building to honor their master. The building, Densatil Monastery, preserved Dorje Gyalpo’s thatched hut in one corner, and at the center of its eastern wall, they interred his remains within a large Kadampa-style stupa. The first tashi gomang was not constructed until 1208, and it was erected at Drigung Monastery rather than at Densatil. Phagmo Drupa’s disciple, Jigten Gompo, while in deep meditation, had a vision of Chakrasamvara surrounded by a retinue of 2800 deities, high on the slopes of Mount Tsari. Seeking to translate the ethereal into the worldly, Jigten Gompo ordered the construction of an enormous structure to support a commemorative stupa at Drigung. The design of the tashi gomang consisted of six stepped tiers, the sides covered in gilt-bronze plaques with doors and niches from which emerged freestanding gilt-bronze images of various mandala figures. The entire structure was in essence a series of mandalas contained within the overall mandala of the structure itself. The first tashi gomang at Drigung, which was likely to have been the prototype for the eight tashi gomang at Densatil, was completely destroyed in 1290 when the Sakya clan sacked and burned Drigung to the ground. Throughout the latter half of the thirteenth century, meanwhile, the Phagmo Drupa of Densatil were slowly gaining independence from the Drigung, and beginning to assert themselves as a power in their own right. Under the Mongol rule of Tibet, they were elevated as one of the thirteen myriarchies (a unit of subdivision instituted by the Mongols) of Tibet, and Densatil was presented with gifts from Hulagu Khan, brother of Kublai Khan, the Yuan ruler of China. It was likely this influx of wealth and prestige that enabled the monks of Densatil in 1267 to build their first tashi gomang in memory of their recently deceased abbot, Dragpa Tsondru. Despite their growth in stature, the Phagmo Drupa only began to consolidate their power after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, and by the second half of the fourteenth century, were the dominant clan in Tibet. It is during this period, from 1360 to 1434, that the remaining seven tashi gomang were constructed, all roughly following the vision of Jigten Gompo, and thus, the original Drigung prototype of 1208. In the second half of the fourteenth century, however, the Phagmo Drupa were quickly displaced from power by other monastic houses, and despite the wealth interred in Densatil, the monastery was largely undisturbed, and thus unusually preserved, until the twentieth century.