Ancient Tibetan Manuscripts, Far From Monastery

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Eve Kahn

Part of a wooden cover for a Prajnaparamita sutra from Tibet, from the 12th or 13th century.

NEW YORK---Tibetan religious manuscripts, handwritten on bark paper and illustrated with deities, were pressed between gilded wooden boards carved with foliage, creatures and more deities. For a thousand years teams of monastery artisans collaborated on these books. About 100 of these intricately carved wooden panels have been preserved and belong to the Chicago collectors Barry and Mary Ann MacLean. The art historian Kathryn H. Selig Brown spent three years studying them for a new book, “Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers From the MacLean Collection” (Prestel). A traveling show of the MacLean covers is in development. During the current Asia Week New York sales, Tibetan book covers and a few manuscript pages are for sale at Bonhams, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and the Carlo Cristi gallery in Manhattan, each with four- and five-figure prices and estimates. [link]