Colonial Kashmir Tibetan-style Travelling Altar Table (Chogtse)

This folding table, of painted and varnished wood, was made in Srinigar in the 19th century and is based on a Tibetan travelling altar table (chogtse). It has sides with legs that fold up beneath the table top.

The sides with legs are in the shape of grills carved to emulate bamboo

It is richly decorated with Chinese-style bat motifs, shou long-life symbols, and on the front, with a bowl of wish-fulfilling jewels, all against a ground of coral red and purple shades.

The top is decorated with coral red and more long life symbols and bats in gold, and also a central dragon motif, and dragons in each corner, also in gold.

A similar example in the Victoria and Albert Museum is illustrated in Jaffer (2001, p. 298).

Such tables were made in Srinigar as direct copies of Tibetan tables to meet the demand among colonial British expatriates for Tibetan artefacts, and so can be considered among the oeuvre of furniture from British India.

The example here is more elaborately decorated than most surviving examples. There is some age-related scuffing but the paintwork largely is intact.