

Plate I 



The reigning queen (Maharanl) of Sikkim, after an oil-portrait by Damodar 

 Dutt, a Bengali artist, in the collection of the Field Museum (Cat. No. 117815, 

 acquired by the writer at Darjeeling in 1908). The queen is a full-blooded Tibetan 

 princess born at Lhasa in 1864 and was married to the present king of Sikkim as his 

 second wife in 1882. Both were taken prisoners by the British in 1893 and held in 

 captivity at Darjeeling. During that time she used to sit to the Bengali painter for 

 the portrait in question which was completed in 1908. The writer had an audience 

 with her in her palace at Gangtak, the capital of Sikkim, at which time she was 

 dressed in the same state-attire and with the same jewelry as in this painting. Her 

 crown, the peculiar headdress adopted by the queens of Stkkim, is composed of broad 

 bandeaux made up of pearls, interspersed with turquoises and corals alternating. 

 Her gold earrings are inlaid with a mosaic of turquoises in concentric rings. The 

 necklace consists of coral beads and large yellow amber balls, and has a charmbox 

 igau) attached to it, set with rubies, lapis lazuli and turquois. She wears a bracelet 

 of corals and two gold rings set with turquois and coral. 



Mr. J. Claude White, the British Political Officer of Sikkim (in his book "Sikhim 

 and Bhutan," p. 22, London, 1909) characterizes her as a striking personality, ex- 

 tremely bright, intelligent, and well educated; her disposition, he says, is a masterful 

 one, and her bearing always dignified; she is always interesting, either to look at or to 

 listen to, and had she been bom within the sphere of European politics she would 

 most certainly have made her mark, for there is no doubt she is a bom intriguer and 

 diplomat. 



Another oil-portrait in the Field Museum from the hands of the same artist 

 represents the Mongol Lama Shes-rab rgya-mts'o ("The Ocean of Wisdom") bom 

 in 1 82 1 at Kuka-khota ("Blue City," in Shansi Province, China), teacher to the 

 Pan-ch'en Lama, then interpreter in the Anglo-Indian Civil Service; he was dis- 

 tinguished for his Tibetan scholarship, particularly in the department of astronomy 

 and astrology; he did useful work in assisting English translations of Tibetan books, 

 and died at Darjeeling in 1902, at the age of eighty-one. Damodar Dutt received 

 for this portrait a medal from the Bombay Art Exhibition. 

 Dimensions of above portrait: 1.74 x1.06 m. 



