Painted Tibetan Pegam Side Cabinet - 18th Century

This painted Tibetan side cabinet has incredibly unusual iconography and dates to the 18th century. It is almost unheard of to find Tibetan cabinets with a Taoist theme and it seems likely this piece originated in Eastern Tibet. 

The figure to the left is the Taoist immortal He Xiangu who is depicted holding a vase in her hand. She is the only female immortal of the eight daoist immortals.

This cabinet is of unusual form for Tibetan furniture and it appears to have originally been at least a four door cabinet and reduced in height many years ago. It appears to be one of a pair as the cabinet is handed. There are no examples of similar cabinets or topics in any Tibetan furniture books we have found. 

This cabinet also has another unusual feature in the form of a spell inscribed on the inner door panel. It is an inscription to 'gather all fears together' and nullify them with hundreds of thousands of offerings, which are represented by the heaped dots ontop of the inscription. Scroll through the images to see a detailed picture of the inscription.

 

From Tibet

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