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1998.131.472.2 (Contact Print)
1998.131.472.2 (Contact Print)
Frederick Spencer Chapman
Frederick Spencer Chapman
February 14th 1937
Tsarong Dzasa, Pema Dolkar Tsarong
Lhasa > Tsarong House
1998.131.472.2
59 x 90 mm
Ritual Activity
Print gelatin silver
Donated 1994
Faith Spencer Chapman
British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
Frederick Spencer Chapman
B.6 [view film roll]
SC.T.2.472
Notes on print/mount - The contact print has been made using Velox paper as the trade mark has been printed on the back, enclosed within an oval. The number '640' has been printed on the back of the print in red ink [MS 30/6/2005]
Manual Catalogues - Caption in Chapman's hand-written list of negatives made whilst on the Mission to Lhasa, 1936-7 [See PRM Manuscripts Collection]: '1/2 Tsarong and Mrs at home ceremony'; PRM Manuscripts Collection: ‘List of Tibetan Prints and Negatives’ - Book 3: ‘12/3 - Tsarong and his wife celebrate the New Year in their home. The lid of the circular box on left is held up by a column of barley dough [MS 27/03/2006]
Research publication - Clare Harris and Tsering Shakya (eds.), 'Seeing Lhasa: British Depictions of the Tibetan Capital 1936-1947', Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2003, p.70.
Biographical Information - Dasang Damdul Tsarong was promoted to high official rank as a result of his great courage during the rising which ousted the Chinese from Lhasa in 1912. At this time he was not a Tsarong family member, having been named Nangang in the Khakhor Shi family into which he was born. However, as a newly ennobled official it was proposed that he should marry into the Tsarong family, which had fallen on hard times as both the father and eldest son had been put to death after being accused of collaboration with the Chinese. Initially it was proposed that he should marry the widow of Tsarong's son, Rigzen Choden, but after objections from the Tsarong estate, it was decided that he should take the daughter of the late Tsarong, Pema Dolkar, as his second wife. This would ensure the bloodline continuity of the Tsarong household [see [In the Service of his Country: the Biography of Dasang Damdul Tsarong, Commander General of Tibet, Dundul Namgyal Tsarong, Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, pp.47-8] [MS 30/6/2005]
Biographical Information - Dasang Damdul Tsarong was a favourite of the 13th Dalai Lama, a military man and later a shappe (cabinet minister in the Tibetan government) until he was removed from office as a result of his modernising policies. He was a great friend of the British Mission frequently inviting them to his house and accompanying them on their various visits around Lhasa. He was considered by the mission to be a great character, as Gould recalled “Once, after a long and festive party at the De Kyi Lingka, he fell asleep in my arms murmuring, “Great minister, I love you, I love you”. At breakfast next morning he had his usual bright eye and was quite unperturbed. He spoke a little English. To him it seemed strange that anybody in India should not welcome British rule”. (1957:236) He had four wives (Including Rigzin Choden, Pema Dolkar, Rinchen Dolma (later Mary Taring) and Tseten Dolkar) and ten children. Although he was in India in 1956 he insisted on going back to Tibet to help the Dalai Lama to escape into exile. He was captured by the Chinese and in 1959 died mysteriously the night before what was due to be his public humiliation. [CH 2003]
Other Information - Related Images: Images prefixed with 'B' seem to have been taken during the New Year ceremonies in 1937 [MS 27/03/2006]
Other Information - Setting: Tsarong and one of his wives, Pema Dolkar, in ceremonial dress during the New Year celebrations at their home in Lhasa. This photograph was taken during a New Year party to which Spencer Chapman and other members of the 1936 Mission were invited. Tsarong made special arrangements for electric lights to be brought into the house so that Spencer Chapman could take photographs, which normally would not have been possible due to the darkness in most Tibetan interiors. Spencer Chapman noted that: “ On one side of the room was a high throne for Tsarong, and next to it on the left, another, slightly lower, for his wife, and others, lower still, for the three children. Seats for the guests of the house were arranged on the other side of the room”. “It was all very simple, and the atmosphere, although dignified, was friendly, and emphasised the patriarchal nature of the family. It would be hard to find a people who can keep up their tradition with greater dignity and less self-consciousness that the Tibetans”. [Lhasa the Holy City, F. S. Chapman, London: Chatto & Windus, 1938:321] [Clare Harris, 2003]
Other Information - Dress: Chapman wrote quite extended descriptions of the setting of this photograph in both the official Mission Diary of the 1936-37 Mission to Lhasa, for which he was responsible as Sir Basil Gould's Secretary and his main publication concerning his time in Tibet Lhasa the Holy City [London: Chatto & Windus, 1938; reprint London: Readers Union, 1940]. The accounts differ little, demonstrating how Chapman would sometimes lift sections from the diary for his publication. However, Chapman wrote more fully of Tsarong's costume in the Mission Diary. He stated: "The master's seat is a canopied divan which varies in height with the rank and dignity of the owner. Besides him on his left sit his wife and children in all their best clothes. If he is of high rank the master will be wearing a robe of yellow silk patterned with Imperial five-clawed dragons, and a round flat hat of red silk heavily bordered with fur and topped by an ornament of gold turquoise and other semi-precious stones surmounted by a ruby or amethyst button - a survival of the Chinese buttons of rank. His wife will be wearing over her skirt the striped apron worn by all married women; a brocade blouse with a scarf of plum coloured silk across her breast and one of rainbow colours round her shoulders. Her headdress will be heavy with great corals and turquoises and hung with closely woven streamers of seed pearls; more gold and turquoise ornaments set with precious stones hang down from her shoulders, and on her breast is a large star-shaped charm box of gold studded with turquoise and diamonds" [Mission Diary for 14th February 1937]. The scarf would have been placed around Tsarong's neck when the ritual offerings of barley beer had been presented to him by the household. He would then have reciprocated to his family and servants [see 1940:320-22] [MS 30/6/2005]
For Citation use:
The Tibet Album.
"Tsarong and Pema Dolkar at home at New Year"
05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum.
<http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_1998.131.472.2.html>.
For more information about photographic usage or to order prints, please visit the The Pitt Rivers Museum.
© The Pitt Rivers Museum
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