The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingiei Lam Collection

This unique survey of Tibetan sculpture focuses on the Nyingjei Lam Collection, currently on loan to the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Published here for the first time, the collection includes outstanding examples of Tibetan sculpture as well as superb works from surrounding regions that were important in the formation of Tibetan sculpture: eastern India, Kashmir and Nepal. The authors examine these works in light of new developments in the field, exploring the myriad ways in which early Tibetan sculptors and patrons drew upon the longstanding traditions of surrounding regions and forged sculptural traditions of their own by virtue of aesthetic, stylistic and iconographic choices that were uniquely Tibetan. The Nyingjei Lam Collection includes a superb group of portraits of Buddhist teachers, the enlightened exponents of Buddhist ideals in Tibet.