Pieces from the Himalayas combine handcrafting with cultural significance in almost irresistible ways. The Mongolian stirrup conjures up horsemen sweeping across the steppes, but also the dedicated artists who created the delicate enamelling. The melong, or spirit mirror, evokes the world of the Tibetan shaman, distant in both time and space. The Orissan toy horse takes one back to the tribal villages that still exist there, although today they are even poorer. Please click on a picture to find more information about each piece.

Besides the kind of item shown above, we have a special interest in thokchas (also spelled 'thogchag', 'thog-clad', 'thogcha', etc.). 'Thokcha' is a Tibetan word meaning 'sky metal'. For centuries, nomads and other travellers in Tibet's desolate valleys and over its passes have found small metal objects that seem to have fallen from the sky. They are often of unfamiliar shapes and subjects, worn and patinated with age. Dropped by travellers on the Silk Road or by nomads of earlier times, they have been preserved by the climate of the Tibetan plateau.

Thokchas are made of various copper alloys that aren't bronze in the technical Western sense, though in Tibetan they are known overall as 'li', which means 'bronze'. Some Tibetans and researchers state that a true thokcha should be made of meteoric metal, or at least have some meteoric metal in it, but I have never seen a piece that I was confident did contain such metal. The word now is generally used to mean old pieces in copper alloy that have been worn by Tibetans as protective pendants at some point in their history, never mind their original use. Bridle ornaments, pieces once sewn on leather, ancient chariot fittings and bits of weaponry all qualify. Most ritual instruments, pieces that have never been worn as protective amulets and recently made pendants do not. Nor do iron, silver or gilded objects (or most brass ones).

Thokchas are difficult to date accurately, because very few have been found in controlled excavations, and their iconography does not necessarily reflect what was current in workshop statuary or painting at the time. The dates we give to them are opinions based on hands-on experience more than scholarly research. For more information on them or on other Himalayan pieces, please contact us.