Temple Rubbing

Discussion in 'Art' started by Kevin Meade, Aug 8, 2018.

  1. Kevin Meade

    Kevin Meade Well-Known Member

    Hi Folks,
    Found this at the flea market today. Gave $10 for it. The wife loves it. Does anyone know if these things are ever signed? Any way to determine age on a piece like this?
    Thanks , Kevin
    [​IMG]
     
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  2. Debora

    Debora Well-Known Member

  3. Kevin Meade

    Kevin Meade Well-Known Member

    Thank you Debora. I am also from the 70's....cool! :rolleyes:
     
  4. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    They are never signed, because they are not artist made, just a graceful Thai souvenir.

    It is a scene from the Hindu epic Ramayana, queen Sita and her attendant.
    The Ramayana in short: King Rama cedes his throne to his brother and retreats to a forest. Queen Sita is abducted by a demon disguised as a golden hind. Her husband, erstwhile king Rama, rescues her with supernatural help and a great effort from his loyal friend, monkey king Hanuman. At the end king and queen are united and Rama is back on the throne.
    It is essentially a long, complicated and epic conflict between good and evil. Good prevails, only just, and in the process a lot of beings on either side are killed.
    Moral of the story: never trust a golden hind.
     
  5. silverthwait

    silverthwait Well-Known Member

    Devil take the Hind-most!
     
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  6. AuDragon

    AuDragon Well-Known Member

    Hi Kevin,
    Can I just add a couple of things? I believe AJ is correct about the story and it being Thai. However, it does not appear to be the typical mass-produced tourist piece.
    Can you tell how it was made? It's hard to tell from the image.
    To me, it looks a bit like a rubbing from a temple wall or bas relief carving. It looks a bit "one-off", and could easily have been an individual work by a single person. They are rarely signed or dated. It's really hard to tell with just the one image but the way the crayon/pastel/pencil seems to have bled into the paper suggests a little age, but of course, it needs a close inspection to be sure.
    It looks like it might have had extra colours added to in-fill the skin and the faces for example. As I said, its hard to tell, and I could be wildly off the mark here.
    Is the frame original or is that later?
    I have several Thai paintings, manuscripts and artworks that I have collected, but haven't seen one produced in this way or in this detail.
    I'd agree with Debora and suggest 70-80's, but paper quality in Thailand isn't always high, and it can stain, discolour and mark easily. This can make artwork look older than it is. I bought some beautiful coloured ink-wash pieces several years ago that will eventually fade to grey. (Not the 1980's Visage song.;))
    I'm glad your wife loves it, it has a gentle spiritual feel, typical of traditional Thai artwork.
    Enjoy it.
     
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  7. Kevin Meade

    Kevin Meade Well-Known Member

    Thank you AuDragon,
    The frame does appear to have some age to it as well , but any history to the piece is just speculation on my part. I found it at the flea market just yesterday with no history of the piece passed along. I will attempt some close pictures of it and that may help you determine the process of how it was made.
    My wife had me hang it last night and she was instantly drawn to it. I have never seen her connect with a piece so much before. I sent her the same picture that I posted here on the forum and she was excited to get home and see it in person.
    It is said that there is a place for all things and it would seem this has found its place.
    Kevin.
     
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  8. Kevin Meade

    Kevin Meade Well-Known Member

    Maybe these close ups will be helpful?
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  9. Debora

    Debora Well-Known Member

    I travelled to Thailand in those years. It's a souvenir temple rubbing but... keep in mind... there wasn't a lot of Asian tourism in those days and what there was was fairly high end. In general, souvenir items were of higher quality and not "mass-produced."

    Debora
     
  10. Kevin Meade

    Kevin Meade Well-Known Member

    Thank you very much for the information Debora. That must have been some fun travels! My father in law was there during his military days in the early 70's and remembered a visit to the Wat Pho Temple.
     
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  11. AuDragon

    AuDragon Well-Known Member

    Hi Bryan,
    Thanks for the extra images which really helped. Here is some further information about your Thai temple rubbing.
    Your rubbing actually comes from Wat Pho in Bangkok. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho)
    I have included a copy of your rubbing and the original marble carving from which your rubbing comes. If you look carefully, you can see many details are exactly the same. As the original marble carving is unique to the artist and temple, no two carvings are the same.
    Yours has been done with hardened sticks of coloured oil which give that slightly diffuse look around the edges as the oil bleeds into the handmade rice paper over time.
    Original rubbings were mainly done in the 1960's and readily available until the 1970's. I suspect yours is from this time and was probably high end (as Debora said).
    If interested, there is some further information here: http://thaitemplerubbings.com/


    upload_2018-8-10_17-5-13.jpeg

    upload_2018-8-10_17-5-42.jpeg
     
  12. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    AuDragon said:
    Your rubbing actually comes from Wat Pho in Bangkok. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho)
    Very useful info, AuDragon, thank you.
    When my parents bought ours in 1970 we were told it was from the Ramayana, which seems to be called Ramakien in Thai. The original Hindu Sita is called Benyagai in Thai.
    We were also told that the rubbings were made from replicas of the original carvings to prevent wear. That is also mentioned on the site you included.
    We may have seen them being made, but I don't remember.
    Below is ours, silver and gold paint on red cotton. We also have king Rama (Phra Ram) in his chariot. Both were bought by my parents when we were in Bangkok in 1970. A time when the city was filled with American GIs and other tourists. Bangkok was already the tourist hotspot of Asia, but that may have died down a bit after the Vietnam war ended.
    There was literally a pile of these to chose from, which I would call mass production. They were an easy souvenir, because they were just cloth, which fits in a suitcase.
    My parents had it framed in Australia, I think.
    [​IMG]

    I saw a lot of the black and white paper ones in shops here in the Netherlands in the 1980s and 90s. I still see them regularly on second hand sites here. Mass production doesn't mean they are not nice, they are.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Aug 10, 2018
  13. AuDragon

    AuDragon Well-Known Member

    Here is an old photograph I found of an artist and how they originally copied the temple carvings.

    6206_02r.jpg
     
  14. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    Very nice AuD. Do you think that was a cloth one as well?
    I like the simple braces to tighten the material inside the borders of the frieze.
     
  15. AuDragon

    AuDragon Well-Known Member

    Hi AJ. It's such an interesting photo. I hadn't seen a temple rubbing being produced before so this explains a lot. I think the fabric could be cloth or linen and then perhaps stretched onto a frame (like an artist canvas). Perhaps these are the quality ones the artist might have signed. It's hard to tell, but it could also be a heavier handmade paper, which I think would fall around the edges like this one. I remember the early rubbings were on much heavier paper than the more recent copies.
    It's hard to tell what the braces are made of, but probably a softwood of some sort. They do look custom made for the purpose.
     
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  16. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    The ones I have were never stretched on a frame. They are cotton, and came from a pile of similar cloths.
    I have never seen signed ones, and I can't imagine a Thai signing something as his own when it was made from an existing traditional carving that has such profound spiritual meaning in his culture. They are good at faking other people's arts and crafts, but would they go that far with something that is so important to them personally? Wouldn't that be considered disrespectful? Not even Muslim Javanese would do that with their Buddhist heritage.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2018
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  17. AuDragon

    AuDragon Well-Known Member

    I have seen one signed before and I was trying to find the image, but couldn't. I'll look again, but I suspect it wasn't an important Buddhist scene, I seem to recall a dancer. So I do agree with you that important Buddhist rubbings would mostly not have been signed.
    The number of fakes being made and sold in Thailand still astounds me, especially bronze Buddhas which are being onsold through auction houses around the world as genuine antiques. Their bronze factories produce stunning copies still using the same old production methods. Caveat Emptor.
    My Thai partner has forbidden broken or damaged Buddha images in the house. Mounted heads are regarded as the worst kind of sacrilege to a Buddhist. This is why you sometimes see broken Buddhas in a dedicated cemetery within Temple compounds. It's terrible luck to keep a broken Buddha.
     
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  18. Any Jewelry

    Any Jewelry Well-Known Member

    Yes, if you google antique bronze Buddha, you see mostly fakes. They are now starting to surpass the Chinese in the sheer number fake Chinese porcelain antiques, often better quality than the Chinese fakes.
    I know. I have a small genuine Sukhothai Buddha head which has been in our family for several generations. When a Thai friend saw it, she was shocked. Afterward I hid it every time she came to the house, so as not to upset her. She never asked about it.
    Of course the Buddha would never have endorsed any belief like that, but religions lead their own lives, separate from their originators. Culture directs the path.
     
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  19. joeydondo

    joeydondo New Member

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    I got these from an estate sale in la jolla California old lady died she had a few different ones rolled up in individual poster holders little cardboard container things.. are they real?
     
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  20. i need help

    i need help Moderator Moderator

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