IDNO

P.97011.WIL

Description

On Cech’s list describing prints:
“(58-135 where taken in Lhasa.)
99. “The Lungshar family at Dekyi-lingka” [29.8.33]
See ww: Lungshar” [printed text]
For more information see Cech’s list.

A formal group portrait of three members of the Lungshar family in the garden of Dekyi-lingka. All three wear traditional Tibetan dress. The two men on either side wear long broadcloth robes held in at the waist with sashes, and a long earring in the left ear. Like other male members of the aristocracy they wear their hair parted in the middle and arranged in two plaits brought up to the crown of the head and tied in a double top-knot with a red ribbon.
The woman in the center wears a chuba (a long sleeve-less gown), a silk blouse, and a horizontally striped apron. She also wears a Ga-u (amulet boxes) from the neck, and an official Y-shaped headdresses of the Lhasa style, to which her own hair and false hair-pieces, as well as ornaments, are attached.

Behind the Lungshar family, on the left, David Tennant is reading a book.

Place

C Asia; Tibet; Lhasa; Dekyi Lingka

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Williamson, Frederick

Collector / Expedition

Date

29 August 1933

Collection Name

Williamson Collection

Source

Williamson, Margaret

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Transcription: The transcription of this album by Mark Turin and Sara Shneiderman was carried out with reference to Krystina Cech’s catalogue list alone. Alex Nadin has since revised their cataloguing by systematically matching their records to the images. Margaret Williamson’s handwritten captions for photographs have now been transcribed into the Inscription field, and Cech’s descriptions appear in the Description field. Correct entries for Place, Named Person and Other Nos. have also been entered by Alex Nadin. [Sudeshna Guha 29/10/2002]

Related Image: On Cech’s list describing prints:
“(58-135 where taken in Lhasa.)
99. “The Lungshar family at Dekyi-lingka” [29.8.33]
See ww: Lungshar” [printed text]
For more information see Cech’s list.

Place: Dekyilingka was the house in Lhasa lent to the British Mission by Kundeling monastery which served as the headquarters of the 1936 British Mission to Lhasa. Dekyilingka translates as the 'Happy Garden'. [Source: http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/glossary.php, CJ 21/08/2008]

Biographical Information: For further information on Lungshar see the Biographies File. [CJ 21/8/2008]

Clothing: “Women wore long sleeve-less gowns (chuba) and silk blouses. Over this they word aprons striped horizontally with red, green, yellow and white, the top corners of which were of heavily flowered gold braid. Only married women wore aprons. The main jewellery comprised an amulet box (ga’u) suspended from a necklace. These contained charms written on a piece of paper which is folded, covered with cloth and bound with coloured threads arranged in a geometrical pattern. Amulet boxes were frequently ornamented with turquoises, rubies and diamonds and hung from necklaces of coral and agate beads. On official occasions they wore either Y-shaped or hoop-shaped headdresses (depending on whether you were a Lhasa or a Gyantse/Shigatse noblewoman, respectively). The size and number of corals, pearls and turquoises decorating these headdresses would be determined by the wealth of the woman’s family. In the case of the Lhasa headdress, it was attached to a specially constructed ‘horn’ shaped structure incorporating the woman’s own hair and false hair-pieces.” [Source: Cech’s list, JD 15/5/2008]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Caspian James 21/8/2008]