EASTERN TIBET OR MONGOLIA, 19TH CENTURY

Details

A Gilt Copper and Silver Repoussé Butter Lamp
Eastern Tibet or Mongolia, 19th Century
Very finely worked in gilt copper repoussé and silver, the tiered conical foot surrounded by a frieze of silver skulls beneath scenes from the charnel fields, the mid-section worked in silver as the vase of life containing the elixir of immortality attached with skeletons in the four cardinal directions, the flared bowl applied with silver vignettes of offerings in skull cups alternating with skeletons and scenes from the charnel fields, the cover with a central opening for the wick surrounded by frieze with silver skulls and severed heads in relief alternating with offerings worked in repoussé and a border depicting countless ritual objects, richly gilt
34¾ in. (88.3 cm.) high

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Spink and Son, Ltd., The Mirror of Mind, Art of Vajrayana Buddhism, 1995, p. 76f., cat. no. 47.
Exhibition catalogue, Monasterios y lamas del Tibet, Madrid, Fundación "La Caixa", 2000, p. 111, cat. no. 30.
J. Huntington and D. Bangdel, The Circle of Bliss, Buddhist Meditational Art, 2003, pp. 370-72 and ill.

Exhibited

London, Spink and Son, Ltd., The Mirror of Mind, Art of Vajrayana Buddhism, cat. no. 47, June 1995.
Madrid, Fundación "La Caixa", Monasterios y lamas del Tibet, cat. no. 30, November 2000 - January 2001.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Columbus, Columbus Museum of Art, The Circle of Bliss, Buddhist Meditational Art, cat. no. 109, October 2003 - May 2004.

Lot Essay

Large butter lamps, usually of undecorated copper, are traditionally placed on either side of a temple altar. The entire surface of this lamp is sumptuously decorated with numerous Buddhist symbols. The design of the border encircling the cover includes virtually every ritual object used in Vajrayana iconography.
Offering lamps (dipa) combine the aesthetic appeal of flickering light with the symbolic connotation of awakening and offering one's own spirit and aspiration. This large and elaborately worked lamp is among the most magnificent examples known, cf. J. Huntington and D. Bangdel, Circle of Bliss, p. 370. The sense of gruesome horror depicted with great detail in the vignettes of offerings and scenes from the charnel grounds is subsumed by artistic beauty, power and vitality.

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