Page 53 - Bonhams Los Angelis December 14, 2022
P. 53
A Collection of Tibetan Silver-Mounted
Water Offering Bowls
Lots 51 - 66
Water bowls are used in Tibetan Buddhist rituals to place offerings of and the motifs tend to favor the ‘Eight Buddhist Emblems’, auspicious
water on the altar. Typically appearing in a group of seven, the bowls animals, lotus, and foliate scroll. For an overview of vessels used in
are organized in a row and filled with water each morning as offerings Tibetan Buddhist offerings, see Michael Henss, Buddhist Ritual Art of
to the Buddha and bodhisattvas. This devotional practice is known Tibet: A Handbook on Ceremonial Objects and Ritual Furnishings in
as the Seven Water Offerings (mchod yon, or yon chab ‘bul ba). The the Tibetan Temple, Stuttgart, 2020, p. 126. For contemporaneous
bowls can be made entirely of metal, or with a wood core and applied water bowls executed with a silver body embellished with gilt-copper
silver mounts, as seen in the present examples. The metal can be bands, see Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, A Shrine for
worked in a variety of techniques including repoussé, chasing, cast or Tibet, The Alice Kadell Collection, New York, 2009, p. 244, no. VI-10.
pierced openwork, gilding, hardstone inlay, or a combination thereof,
