Four Seated Masters

c. 1450

Four Seated Masters, c. 1450. Central Tibet, Ngor monastery. Gum tempera and gold on cotton; overall: 57.7 x 52 cm (22 11/16 x 20 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1960.209 Founders and prominent masters of the Sakya order of Buddhism in Tibet are featured in this painting as part of the lineage of teachers who transmitted knowledge of their fundamental text, the Hevajra Tantra. It is part of a series of paintings made at one of the main Sakya monastic centers, which had close ties with Nepal. This Tibetan artwork includes Nepalese features, such as the delicate, decorative quality of the painting, its two-dimensionality, the exaggerated curvature of the upper eyelid, and the filling of all spaces with scrollwork.