MATERIAL: Wood

DIMENSIONS: 129 x 85 x 49 cm (50 3/4 x 33 1/2 x 19 1/4 in.)

NOTES: Provenance: Ashencaen and Leonov, London, 2000s.

Compare with an image depicting Makzor Gyelmo, identified as a specific form of Paldhen Lhamo, in the Rubin Museum of Art (C2002.38.1), who shares a similar color scheme and liveliness of movement with the present figure.

ITEM ID: 5428

A Damchen Garwa Nagpo Figure

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The Melikian Collection of Himalayan and Mongolian Art

DATE

Notes: Late 19th or early 20th century

A painted wooden figure of Damchen Garwa Nagpo.

Damchen Garwa Nagpo, the Blacksmith, was originally a local Tibetan deity prior to his subjugation and conversion into Buddhism by Padmasambhava. Seated atop a mountain goat with twisted horns, he wields a vajra hammer in his raised right arm while holding a blacksmith’s bellows fashioned from the skin of a tiger in his left.

As the popular worship of this protector deity grew in Tibet, China, and Mongolia, so did his depiction in paintings and sculpture during the 17th and 18th centuries.

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