A pair of gilt-copper deer figures, Qing dynasty, 18th century | 清十八世紀 銅鎏金鹿像一對

The two deer symbolise the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, Shakyamuni 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 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, cf. the technique on a pair of recumbent examples in the Musée departmental des Arts asiatiques, Nice (Inv : 99.3.1 et 2 3039292), see Robert A. F. Thurman and David Weldon, Sacred Symbols: The Ritual Art of Tibet, exh. cat., New York, 1999, cat. no. 1.