Do not be fooled by David P. Jackson's modest and understated authorial tone. Patron and Painter is a groundbreaking accomplishment that reflects his decades-long immersion in the history and living traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. The field of Tibetan art history is still at a fledgling stage, with identifying information such as the artists, patrons, precise dates, and sites of production often remaining unknown. Yet Jackson has culled an array of visual and textual sources to present the artistic career and works of a key individual, Situ Panchen Chökyi Jungné (1700–1774), who, as both painter and patron, engendered major stylistic developments in later Tibetan art. Along the way, Jackson offers a trove of information on historical leaders of the Karma Kagyü order, major subjects of Tibetan painting sets, and Tibetan writing about art, as well as stimulating reflections on portraiture and biography, lineage, and the long-standing cultural engagement between Tibet and China. Published as an exhibition catalogue by the Rubin Museum of Art, this sumptuously illustrated and copiously documented book should be of great interest to Tibetologists, art historians, and specialists in Qing studies.

Jackson introduces Situ Panchen in chapter 1 as a prominent trulku (reincarnated lama) of the Derge kingdom of eastern Tibet who revived the Karma Kagyü order and was widely respected as a scholar and editor of the Buddhist canon. Building on his previous research, Jackson details Situ's activities as a painter, designer, and commissioner of thangka scroll paintings, murals, and sculpted images. Through the aggregation of biographical anecdotes, we see how Situ's art was produced in the context of his emerging leadership of the Karma Kagyü order, his extensive court and institutional connections, and related political and cultural shifts.

Chapters 2 and 3 take up portraits of the Situ, Zhamar, and Karmapa incarnation lineages, focusing particularly on their hats as symbols of spiritual authority and markers of identity. Jackson suggests useful categories for distinguishing between types of portraiture, calling attention to sources informing the portrait. These range from the portrait subjects and received narratives about them to conventions of idealized portraiture, written plans of earlier portraits, and iconographically established portraits of the subject (pp. 29–30). Rather than forcing either hats or portraits into rigid schema, Jackson writes in a refreshingly candid and accessible manner that reflects his investigative process, considers variations and exceptional cases, and raises questions for further research.

Reconstructing the stylistic background of Situ's art is an ambitious undertaking that occupies chapters 4 and 5. Jackson compiles a fascinating succession of images, along with writings on art production, in order to trace early paintings commissioned within the Karma Kagyü order and the emergence of the Karma Gardri school in the late sixteenth century through the seventeenth century. Jackson deftly places the production of these images within their religious matrix, an aspect that has been too often overlooked in publications on Tibetan art. Stimulating observations abound in the course of discussion: for example, Situ wrote that a thangka depicting the life of Sokwön Rinchen Zangpo, tutor to the Sixth Karmapa, served as the basis of his later biography of the same subject (p. 78). This explicit linkage of narrative portraiture and textual biography suggests promising avenues for further research.

Chapters 6 through 9 present Situ's prolific artistic output, especially thangka sets consisting of multiple paintings depicting formalized narrative, liturgical, and ritual subjects. Jackson's painstaking inventories identify the multiple figures on each scroll of each set in chapters 7, 8, and 9, making invaluable contributions to the study of Tibetan iconography. The careers of these sets are also described, attesting to their wide distribution and continuing popularity. Chapter 9 also includes interesting theories on the complex methods of addition and repainting by which lineage sets may have been formed (pp. 169–72).

Chapter 10, a contribution by Karl Debreczeny on Situ's activities and artistic inspiration in Yunnan, recovers the kingdom of Lijiang as an important site of Tibetan and Chinese interaction. Fieldwork at Yufengsi (Jade Peak Temple) led him to the discovery of a complete set of wall paintings following Situ's thangka design of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas, thus confirming Situ's artistic legacy in Yunnan. In the remainder of his meticulously composed essay, Debreczeny documents Lijiang patronage of the Karma Kagyü order from the early sixteenth century, and details how Situ asserted control over local monasteries in the area while cultivating the patronage of the new imperial authority in the region. The cultural relationship extended beyond the medium of art; there is also evidence of exchange in the areas of Chinese and Tibetan language, astronomy, and medicine (pp. 235, 238, 240).

Patron and Painter is a milestone in its field, historicizing a single artist and school of painting with such specificity and comprehensiveness that it sets new standards for the study of Tibetan art. As may be expected from a work of this nature, certain areas of inquiry could be refined. In particular, the formal developments and distinguishing features of styles such as Menri, Khyenri, and Gardri could be clarified, as well as their relationships to modes of artistic production, religious orders, and geographic regions. Moreover, precise vocabulary to describe how Tibetan and Chinese styles are combined in single works—and the political and social implications of such acts—have yet to be developed. Finally, it is worth noting that despite the high quality of the published images, they cannot fully capture the jeweled colors and miniscule details of the paintings, which are best seen in person. However, these are minor issues that in no way undermine the significance of this contribution for the interdisciplinary study of Tibetan art, history, and biography. Marking the first in a series of Jackson's scholarly collaborations with the Rubin Museum of Art, this book signals more exciting work in the future.