Portrait of the Master Morya
by J.D. Buck
The following account and the accompanying portrait is taken from Jirah Dewey Buck's book titled Modern World Movements, Chicago, 1913, page 141 (portrait facing page 144).
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J.D. Buck (1838-1916) was an early member of the Theosophical Society and worked very closely with W.Q. Judge. For biographical information on Buck, see article Jirah Dewey Buck in Theosophy Wiki.
For more information on this particular portrait, see Henry S. Olcott's account in Old Diary Leaves, Series One, Chapter XXIII, pp. 370-2. Olcott describes this portrait as "the first portrait of my Guru, the one done in black and white crayons at New York by M. Harrisse."
J.D. Buck's account is as follows:"The portrait of a Master, herewith, seems interesting.
Nearly twenty years ago an acquaintance at Jamestown, N.Y., showed me a photograph of this Master, accompanying one of H.P.B. which he had procured from a Photographer at Schenectady, N.Y., and he gave me the address of the artist.
I thereupon obtained some copies, after which he informed me that he had the original negative and that it was obtained from H.P.B. while she was a guest at his house, about 1876, or '77.
I bought the negative, because I disliked to see copies sold about the country indiscriminately.
Later, Mr. Judge told me that he was present at the Lamasery (as they called H.P.B.'s New York residence) when the artist drew this likeness on a piece of Manila paper, under H.P.B.'s telepathic gaze; thus conveying to the artist's vision the image of the reality in her own mind.
No one familiar with the pictures [of the Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi], made in oil by another artist [Hermann Schmiechen] in London in the same way many years later [1884], will fail to note the resemblance. . . ."
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BA Editor's Note: See Schmiechen's portraits of Master Koot Hoomi (to the left) and Master Morya (to the right)
