
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
This auction has ended. View lot details



Sold for HK$163,125 inc. premium
Our Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
International Director
毛料密宗人皮毯
西藏 十九世紀
This finely constructed carpet depicts a gruesome image of a flayed female deity (possibly Simhamukha) laying against a sea of blood, surrounded by severed heads and dried skulls with their eyes pulled out. Such tantric rugs are sat on by Vajrayana Buddhist practitioners in rituals associated with the worship of wrathful protectors, though they more typically depict flayed human or animal skins. The employment of fearsome images in Tibetan Buddhism is meant to remove obstacles on the path to enlightenment through sacrificial power. See an example with a male figure published in Henss, Buddhist Ritual Art of Tibet, Stuttgart, 2020, p.344, no.457. Also, compare the present lots stylized cloud bands at each end with a tiger rug published in Rutherford, et al., Woven Wonders, Pasadena, 1992, p.57, no.33.
Provenance
Private European collection, acquired between 1990 and 1998