Provenance:
Collection of Eve Sloan-Smith, by repute
Collection of Mona Bismarck, Paris, by repute
Sotheby's, Los Angeles, March 4, 1982, no. 1258
Exhibited:
Lotusland, Montecito, California, "Journey to Tibet," July 26, 1998
The two deer symbolize the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, Sakyamuni Buddha’s first formal sermon after his enlightenment. The teaching of the Four Noble Truths was given to a small group of devotees in the deer park, mrigadava, at Sarnath. The two deer represent the audience of this teaching, being gentle, receptive, and attentive. The symbol of deer flanking a Wheel of the Law, dharmachakra, is seen as early as the first and second centuries carved on Gandhara Buddhist sculpture from northern India and remained a popular motif throughout the Himalayan region and into China up to the Qing dynasty. Two gilded copper male and female deer, either recumbent, kneeling, or standing, are placed either side of a dharmachakra wheel on altars, above monastery gateways, and on temple roofs. The presence of a horn on one of the deer’s heads indicates the male.
The repoussé construction of this pair of deer suggests the workshops of Dolonnor in Inner Mongolia, where gilded statues were commissioned for patrons throughout the Buddhist world of the Qing dynasty. For a pair of recumbent examples see Robert A. F. Thurman and David Weldon, Sacred Symbols: The Ritual Art of Tibet, exh. cat., New York, 1999, cat. no. 1 (now Musée des Arts Asiatiques, Nice)