Asian Artifacts

A scholar’s desk, a brush resting in its pot, the inkstone still damp. Asian artifacts come from China, India, Nepal, Tibet, Japan and Mongolia. Indian tikka boxes in brass and silver held kumkum and sindoor powder for the forehead mark; brass oil lamps and Newari candle bases with lotus motifs lit shrines in India and the Kathmandu Valley. From China come calligraphy brushes, inkstones and brush pots of the scholar’s study, carved jade and wooden toggles, Mao Zedong lapel pins and Cultural Revolution medallions, the badges of a mass movement.

Tibetan and Mongolian ritual objects, Japanese lacquer, Turkish brass hanging lamps, most of it nineteenth and twentieth century. Brass, bronze, jade, glass and horsehair brushes give color and tactile weight. A brush pot and inkstone on a walnut desk, a row of Indian oil lamps down a dining table. Daily rituals, brought indoors.