Footnotes

A SILVER AND GOLD DAMASCENED IRON RITUAL TRIPOD STAND
EASTERN TIBET, DERGE, 15TH/16TH CENTURY

藏東 更慶鎮 十五/十六世紀 鐵鋄金銀三足供架

Tripod stands such as these had a multitude of purposes, as the illustrations in the Gold Manuscript from the Fournier Collection in The Secret Visions of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama reveal. The images depict tripods of this kind holding torma offerings, bumpas, kapalas, and in some cases show implements balanced on top of one another. Clearly used for tantric rituals and empowerment ceremonies, this tripod stand favors a style closely associated to the Ming court.

Like other iron implements included in this sale in the damascened style of Eastern Tibet, the entire surface of the legs are covered in gold and silver inlays of scrolling foliate designs. The upper rim which would have held the offerings in place is trimmed in a geometric motif, while churning waves define the ends of the three cabriole legs. Wrathful faces are inlaid along the edges of the legs with the tops surmounted by three silver skull-heads, all of which indicate a conflated Tibeto-Chinese style.

Tripod stands of this kind are known as early as the 9th/10th centuries as indicated from a painting from Dunhuang. Their use in ritual offerings is documented in paintings, as seen in a 14th-century painting of Amitabha which shows in the lower right corner the eight auspicious symbols atop tripods with a kneeling donor figure to the side (HAR 60680). Another iron and damascened tripod is illustrated in Thurman & Weldon, Sacred Symbols: The Ritual Art of Tibet, New York, 1999, fig. 66.

Published:
Natalie Bazin, Rituels tibétains: Visions secrètes du Vème Dalaï Lama, Paris, 2002, p. 167, no. 141.

Exhibited:
Rituels tibétains: Visions secrètes du Vème Dalaï Lama, Musée Guimet, Paris, 6 November 2002 - 24 February 2003.

Provenance:
Christie's, New York, 17 October 2001, lot 131.