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Imre Galambos

• Stein painting 3 in the British Museum is a silk painting with a symmetrical composition of two Avalokiteśvara figures side by side. At 147.3×105.3 cm in size, this is one of the larger portable paintings from Dunhuang. At the top of the centre of the composition, between and above the heads of the two figures, is a yellow cartouche with a donor inscription. Although the inscription itself contains no date, it has been dated to the mid-9th century on the basis of a supposed reference to the Tibetan control of Dunhuang (787–848). This paper re-examines the inscription and argues that the part in question is unrelated to the Tibetan rule of the region and simply refers to a more generic situation of donors living away from their native land. By moving a detached piece of the silk to its original position, we can also possibly improve the reading of the inscription and, ultimately, its translation. A comparison with other similar inscriptions and colophons from Dunhuang demonstrates that the painting probably dates to the 920s, about seven decades later than previously assumed. In Dunhuang, this falls within the rule of the Guiyijun (851–1036?, 歸義軍, Return-to-Allegiance Army), when the region was separate from both Tibet and the Chinese states.