A POLYCHROME AND GILT WOOD APPLIQUÉ FIVE-LEAF... Lot n° 9

A POLYCHROME AND GILT WOOD APPLIQUÉ FIVE-LEAF RITUAL CROWN, TIBET, 18TH – 19th CENTURY Crown in the form of a five-leaved Tathagata crown, worn for ceremonial events. Set inside a vintage frame, behind glass. Each leaf has an image of one of the five Tathagata Buddhas painted on paper in polychrome and gold paint, enclosed in a reticulated and lobed wood petal, decorated with a blossoming lotus and scrolling foliage, and strung on leather bands. From left to right: Amitabha, Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasaṃbhava, and Amoghasiddhi. Provenance: New York trade. The verso with the label from the framing company, ‘Sutton Place Frame Shop Inc., New York’ with a stamped dated ‘January 7 2000’. Condition: Good condition with expected wear, commensurate with age. Tiny losses, some flaking, minor fraying to the leather bands, some losses to the gilt, the reticulated wood with signs of wear and use. Dimensions: Length 47 cm (together), 28.5 x 52 cm (frame) The Five Buddha Crown is worn during initiation empowerments and rituals. The five petal-like segments represent the Five Buddhas of the five directions, also known as the Five Symbolic Buddhas. The crown initiation symbolizes the transmutation of the initiate's five body-mind systems (mirroring, sensational, conceptual, emotional and cognitive) and the five positions (delusion, pride, lust, envy, and hate) into the five transcendental buddhas (Amitabha, Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi). This crown is worn after blessing, visualizing, and lustrating, as a symbolic seal of the initiate's abandoning the notion of oneself as an ordinary, perfect being, and that adoption of the buddha-pride, the sense of oneself as a purified, enlightened Buddha, every atom itself becomes wisdom. Museum comparison: Compare a related metal vajra crown, Tibet, 19th century, in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Himalayan Art Resources number 77528. Compare a related Lama’s headdress or crown, Tibet, in the collection of the Horniman Museum, object number 1979.14.