Enquiry about object: 4691
Small Devotional Theppanom Tile with Cream Glaze
Si Satchanalai, Thailand 15th-16th century
height: 13.2cm, width: 9.7cm
Provenance
private collection, UK
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.
