Tibetan

An elephant, a monkey, a hare and a bird, each standing on the next to reach the fruit. Tibetan cabinets and chests are painted pine furniture made for monasteries and homes from the late 17th to the 19th century, and the Four Harmonious Friends are among the motifs on their panels, with Buddhist symbols, mandalas, dragons, tigers and lotus scrolls. Forms include two- and four-door cabinets, torgam or chosum altar cabinets for offerings, low monk’s writing tables, and trunks bound in iron or covered in hide and leather. Mineral pigments over gesso have faded and crazed, and the wood shows the smoke of butter lamps.

The color holds even when worn: madder red, malachite green, indigo and gold. A Tibetan chest sits low, suiting the foot of a bed, the end of a sofa or a hallway. Against concrete or steel, it glows.