
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
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Sold for US$12,500 inc. premium
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International Director
Offering light to enlightened beings is an important part of Buddhist prayer and ritual for which this lamp would have been used, set before images on an altar. Offering butter to fuel such lmaps is also a favourite practice of pilgrims in Tibet.
The quality of the delicately chased and embossed design is equivalent to the high level of metalwork in fine Tibetan bronzes. The parcel gilt apsara along the out rim of the lamps mouth might have been useful in securing the transportation of light and smoke to the enlightened beings.
Similar offering lamps, which Rhie & Thurman identify as Lhasa style, are published in Rhie & Thurman, A Shrine for Tibet, New York, 2009, no. VI-11, p.244-5.