COURONNE RITUELLE POLYCHROME À DÉCOR DE BOUDDHAS DES CINQ DIRECTIONS TIBET, VERS XVIIIE SIÈCLECOURONNE RITUELLE POLYCHROME À DÉCOR DE BOUDDHAS DES CINQ DIRECTIONSTIBET, VERS XVIIIE SIÈCLEHimalayan Art Resources item no. 205090 Each leaf 18 cm (7 1/8 in.) x 9.5 cm (3 3/4 in.) A POLYCHROMED RITUAL CROWN WITH THE FIVE PRESIDING BUDDHAS TIBET, CIRCA 18TH CENTURY 西藏 約十八世紀 彩繪五方佛法冠 This five-petal crown represents the Five Tathagatas, or Buddhas of the Five Directions: Amitabha, Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi. Worn during ritual empowerments that transmute defilements into purity, the crown symbolizes the practitioner as a pure and perfect being in a likeness akin to the Buddha. Believed to have derived from wooden blade-shaped lobes from India, as indicated on a late 7th or early 8th century stone sculpture of Vajrapani (Huntington & Bangdel, Circle of Bliss, 2003, no. 52), the five-fold floral crown became a standard motif in the 13th and 14th centuries in Tibet. The earliest known iteration of this type appears on a preserved lobe dated to the 12th/13th century in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1997.152).Provenance:Ashencaen and Leonov, London, 2000s