Inventory no.: 4691

Small Devotional Tile, Thailand, 16th century

SOLD

Small Devotional Theppanom Tile with Cream Glaze

Si Satchanalai, Thailand

15th-16th century

height: 13.2cm, width: 9.7cm

This small terracotta or stoneware tile, which is shaped as a bodhi leaf, would have adorned a public building and most probably a religious building such as a Buddhist monastery where it would have served as an eave finial.

It is decorated with a

theppanom figure. Such celestial figures are always depicted in adoration with hands clasped to their chests and emerging from a thicket of lotus petals.

The tile is covered in a thick, green glaze.

Such tiles were produced in the fifteenth century in the Si Satchanalai kilns, in what is today Thailand’s Sukothai Province.

The example here has a custom-made wooden stand into which it slots. There is an old chip to one side of the tile.

References

Guy, J., Thai Ceramics: The James and Elaine Connell Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco/Oxford University Press, 1993.

Richards, D.,

South-East Asian Ceramics: Thai, Vietnamese, and Khmer – From the Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rooney, D.,

Ceramics of Seduction: Glazed Wares from Southeast Asia, River Books, 2013.

Stevenson, J. & J. Guy,

Vietnamese Ceramics: A Separate Tradition, Art Media Resources, 1997.

Thammapreechakorn, P., S. Lertrit & K. Pinsri,

Ceramic Art in Thailand, Osotspa Co., 1996.

Provenance

private collection, UK

Inventory no.: 4691

SOLD