The article presents a short overview of extant portraits dating from the 13th to the early 20th century in order to show how such images contributed to the legitimisation of the secular and religious nobility's power. It brings forth the conventions that have informed these images by focusing on a few themes (relative/respective positions/postures of husband and wife, frontality, hieratism, the holding of a cup, furniture, entourage, setting) and by drawing comparisons with the Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist pictorial traditions.

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