Green Tara (c. 1260s, mounted 2020): Art, History and Details

Green Tara (c. 1260s, mounted 2020) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Aniko (Nepalese, active in Tibet mid- to late 1200s).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

For Tibetans, Green Tara is one of the preeminent figures of their Buddhist faith, a radiant savioress who embodies the female form of the perfect, enlightened mind. The Green Tara in the Cleveland thangka—a Tibetan devotional painting on cloth—specifically dispels fear and provides protection, just like her mantra inscribed on the back side of the painting. Her green color and fear-not gesture link her to the cosmic Buddha of the North, enshrined above her head. Most scholars agree that this work was painted by the celebrated Nepalese artist known as Aniko.

Object facts

• Title: Green Tara
• Date: c. 1260s, mounted 2020
• Creator attribution: Aniko (Nepalese, active in Tibet mid- to late 1200s)
• Culture: Central Tibet
• Type: Painting
• Technique: thangka; gum tempera, ink, and gold on sized cotton; mount: silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 52.4 x 43.2 cm (20 5/8 x 17 in.); Overall: 107 x 65 cm (42 1/8 x 25 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Tibetan Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1970.156

A detail from the museum

The tiny monastic figure under Green Tara's right hand commissioned the painting.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1970." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 2 (1971): 22–71.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Orientations, vol. 20, October 1989.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.