Nepalese Buddhist Tantric Crown Open

Silver skulls with heart-shaped eye sockets. Impermanence, made formal.

This Buddhist tantric crown comes from Nepal and dates to the 20th century. It is silver with turquoise, coral and cloth. Tantric Buddhist priests in Nepal have worn crowns of this kind during ritual, taking on the presence of a deity, and the skulls are generally read as signs of impermanence and the overcoming of ignorance. Here skulls rise from a repousse band of scrolling foliage, each topped by a pointed gold-toned leaf set with a coral or turquoise stone. Reddish cloth shows inside the rim. The silver is bright where it curves, darker in the recesses. Seven and a quarter inches high.

It is a serious object. It asks to be taken as one.