Two Small Brass & Iron Personal Seals, Tibet, 19th century

Two Small Brass & Iron Personal Seals

These two small Tibetan personal seals have a lot of wear and clearly significant age. The wear shown on them is of some virtue: most extant examples are reproductions.

One is of chiselled iron. It has seal faces at either end, and has a waisted, egg-timer form. It has been decorated with lotus petal motifs.

The other is of brass with a single chiselled iron face, and has a rounded finial.

Both have holes through their mid-sections to allow a leather cord to pass through for suspension. (One still retains its original cord.)

The brass example has further decorative piercing.

Any person of status, and certainly all officials, used seals to sign letters and documents. This practice was imported from China (Reynolds, 1978, p. 49).

Seal marks were made using black ink from lamp black.

Impressions were made in wax made from boiled cowskin or lac to mark envelopes, packages and important possessions.

Both are in fine condition and can be worn as pendants.

Similar examples in the Newark Museum are illustrated in Reynolds (1978, p. 49).

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

private collection, UK