Chinese Buddhist Altar or Shrine with Top Canopy

Tiny roofed pavilion with curved eaves, gilded brackets, and fretwork doors.

This Buddhist altar or shrine with top canopy is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the early 19th century. It is elm wood. 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. Miniature building with a dark tiled-looking roof and upturned corners. Gilded carved brackets run beneath the eaves, and lattice doors with red panels fill the front. The base is a raised platform with curved feet. It is 58 inches long, 34 deep and 85 high.

A house within a house, and quite proud of it.