nuns. The costume of the other two donatrices, with the moderate width of the sleeves and the absence of ornaments in the coiffure, distinctly differs from the fashion shown by the tenth-century pictures. It equally differs from the fashion displayed by the donatrix figures in pictures which we have good reason to believe are older.
The first of these pictures is not a painting at all, but the beautiful hanging in silk embroidery (Fig. 89) . It measures fully eight feet in height and about five and a half feet across. It is only the reproduction by craftsmen, or probably rather craftswomen, of a work from a master's hand. But it stands out by the nobility of its design, the skill and care of its execution and its fine colours as one of the most impressive of our Tang paintings. It represents Buddha Sakyamuni on the `Vulture Peak', famous in Buddhist legend and situated above the present Rajgir. The figure in every detail of pose and dress reproduces a type derived by hieratic tradition from an Indian sculptural representation. Yet in the composition of the whole picture is revealed the touch of a master.
By the side of the Buddha stand pairs of Bodhisattvas and disciples. In spite of the damage which the hanging has suffered, the fine heads of the latter have survived. Very fine is the drawing of the two graceful Apsaras or celestial maidens floating down on either side of the canopy, borne up by cloud scrolls and their billowing stoles.
What invests the figures of the donors and their ladies with special interest is their life-like treatment, and still more their costume. The peaked and tailed caps of the men are of a type found on sculptures of the period immediately preceding the Tang. Equally distinctive is the costume of
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