Tibetan Earring

Gold Earring with Coral & Turquoise

This large and elaborate earring comprises a prominent top loop of gilded brass with an attached tear-shaped ornament of gold and inset with multiple turquoise chips, and from which a gold and coral pendent is suspended. The pendent finishes with a small triple gilded brass loop. This loop is decorative; nothing further was intended to be suspended from it.

Ear ornaments such as these were worn in Tibet singularly by men, or as a pair by women.

See Clarke (2004, p. 74 and 93) and Reynolds (1978, p. 31) for silver examples. Casey Singer (1996, p. 103) illustrates related gold examples.

Ganguly (2007, p. 150) points out that related silver examples also were worn in Ladakh.

Overall, the earring is in fine condition with no repairs or losses.

Casey Singer, J., Gold Jewelry from Tibet and Nepal, Thames & Hudson, 1996.

Clarke, J.,

Jewellery of Tibet and the Himalayas, V&A Publications, 2004.

Ganguly, W.,

Earrings: Ornamental Identity and Beauty in India, B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2007.

Reynolds, V.,

Tibet: A Lost World: The Newark Museum Collection of Tibetan Art and Ethnology, The American Federation of Arts, 1978.

from a UK collection