“This tradition of highly decorative saddles continues uninterrupted in Tibet for at least a thousand years.”
Curator Donald La Rocca on a mid-1900s ceremonial saddle from Tibet.
Blazing Saddle
Donald J. La Rocca
2 min. watch
Contributors
Donald J. La Rocca
Curator, Department of Arms and Armor
Curator, Department of Arms and Armor
Photography by Oi-Cheong Lee
Art Mentioned
Tibetan, Derge
ca. 1943–47
More from The Met
Video
Watch as Met staff undertake a complex treatment to save a Gilded Age watercolor drawing from Tiffany Studios.
October 14
This small plaque of Mark the Evangelist, represented by a lion holding a book between its wings, stands for many stories that illustrate facets of medieval Christian faith.
Guadalupe Nettel
October 8
How the design of this room for private study mathematically embodies a Renaissance-era duke.
Daniel Kershaw
October 6