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A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam) Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century(2) image 1
A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam) Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century(2) image 2
A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam) Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century(2) image 3
A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam) Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century(2) image 4
A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam) Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century(2) image 5
Lot 179

A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam)
Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century
(2)

22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £2,560 inc. premium

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A pair of gold ear ornaments (pampadam)
Tamil Nadu, India, 19th/ 20th Century

each with central hinged ring with screw clasp terminating in a spherical finial, with applied geometric forms
each approx. 4.7 x 3.8 x 4.1 cm.; 49 g. total weight(2)

Footnotes

These kinds of gold ear ornaments formed part of a woman's dowry on her wedding day, gifted by her parents, and took either the form of the present lot, known as pampadam, or thandatti. It has been suggested that pambadam may represent an abstracted serpent or bird, however the precise origins of the design are unknown. The ear ornaments are comprised of lac-filled gold sheet, and are thus lightweight for their size.

A pair of pampadam earrings is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Object No. 2022.262a, b), and a further example is illustrated in Oppi Untracht, London, 1997, Traditional Jewellery of India, p. 221, No. 443. For a comparable pair sold at Sotheby's, see Worlds within Worlds: Works from the Collection of Peter Petrou, 21 September 2021, lot 161.

Additional information