Door Decoration
date: label: Accession Date
content: 17 Aug 1978
name: label: Donor Name
content: Tsering R. Lhungay
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "FLAT RECTANGULAR CAST IRON PIECE, DECORATED WITH FLORAL PIERCED WORK UNDERLYING DRAGON EXTENDS LENGTH, FLAMING JEWEL MOTIF AT HIS HEAD. HEAVILY GILDED, GILT WORN NEAR ONE END, PERFORATIONS AT SIDE BORDER. SAID BY DONOR TO BE DECORATION FOR DOOR OF A TIBETAN PALACE, MADE IN DERGE. BROUGHT TO NEPAL DURING 1959 CHINESE OCCUPATION OF TIBET."
label: Notes
content: Neg. #2005-22913 is color digital photo of entire piece. Color digital neg. #2005-22914 is detail view showing area from dragon's head to his first claw. Illus. p. 221 in "Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet", by Donald LaRocca, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006. Object is described there in this way: "The doors of major shrine rooms and large assemby halls in Tibetan monasteries and temples are often fitted with elaborately decorated metal hardware in the form of cross-straps and large central bosses with ring-pulls. These are usually made of gilded copper or damascened iron, and they are frequently pierced and chiseled .... This example, the fragment of a door strap, is exceptional for the quality and depth of its chiseling, which relates very closely to the best pierced-iron saddle plates in both technique and style, but on a significantly larger scale. It features a large, sinuous, four-clawed dragon with a scaly body, densely overlapped by scrollwork and lotus blossoms, and is damascened overall in gold. A door boss worked in a very similar style, which may have come from the same set of door fittings, or one closely related to it, passed through the art market in the 1980s (Sotheby's 1985, lot 30)."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 1 Dec 2014
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Tibet, Asia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tibetan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 332885
label: USNM Number
content: E420071-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Door Fitting
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 26 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 8.6 cm
label: Depth - Object
content: 4 mm