Bodhisattva on a White Elephant Beneath a Halo — Print & Oil Painting

This is a devotional image and everything in it is a sign. A golden nimbus stands behind the head with straight rays radiating out to the edges of the sky. The elephant walks on open lotus blossoms, one beneath each foot and one beneath the trunk. A long stem rises over the shoulder carrying a green leaf and a pink bud. The white elephant is the mount by which one bodhisattva is traditionally recognised in Buddhist iconography.

Line does the describing. Everything is set down with a fine brush line of near uniform width: the folds of the robe, the creases of the trunk, the elephant's eye and ear, each bead of the harness. Colour is then laid inside those lines in flat translucent washes, and shading appears only sparingly, at the joints and under the jaw.

The figure sits sideways with one leg drawn up, wearing a jewelled crown, a white and red upper robe with a red sash, an ochre lower garment, gold necklaces and armbands, and long pale scarves that fall past the animal's flank in slow curves. One hand rests open in the lap. The other holds the lotus stem against the shoulder.

The elephant is white and drawn in grey, wearing a beaded headpiece, a tasselled harness and a red and gold cloth. It is turned three quarters toward the viewer with the trunk curled down, and its gentleness is entirely a matter of how the eye and the mouth have been shaped, since nothing else about it is expressive.

Behind them the sky is a warm orange gold with soft horizontal cloud bands, paler toward the top. Saturation measures low against a high brightness, which the pale robes and the pale animal on a soft ground fully explain. From our Vietnam collection, near the Huc bridge leading to Ngoc Son temple and a Vietnamese fairy playing a lute amid floating petals.