On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Palden Lhamo
Palden Lhamo is the chief protector of Tibet and its capital Lhasa. Here, she is shown with a midnight-blue complexion traversing a roiling sea of blood on a mule. Instruments of her power, attached at the mule’s neck, include white dice for divination and a bag of maladies fastened with a serpent harness, which she employs to implement divine will. As a saddle blanket, she uses the flayed skin of her own son whom she killed after realizing that he was following in the footsteps of her husband, a murderous king and opponent of Buddhism. The yellow-hatted lamas depicted at the top of the painting reflect her affiliation with the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism and its spiritual head, the Dalai Lama.
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