Chinese Door Lintel with Dragon & Spider Motif

Long carved lintel with dragon-like curls at both ends and a small ring in the middle.

This door lintel with dragon & spider motif is by Carved Poplar, from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 17th or 18th century. Tibetans were traditionally semi-nomadic and owned few personal furnishings, so most Tibetan furniture stood in monasteries, and some of it was carted over the Himalayas to India as monasteries were destroyed. Slender horizontal bar with deeply carved, scaly forms bulging at each end and shallow relief across the center. A small metal ring hangs at its middle. Olive gray surface with traces of darker coloring in the cut lines. It is 90 inches long, 6 deep and 16 high.

Coiled, flourishing, and fond of dramatic corners.