Since the late 1960s, public and private collections around the world have housed a significant group of Tibetan artifacts that exhibit a strong typological, iconographic, and stylistic unity, forming a distinct group among all those cataloged as originating from the “Land of Snows.”

In 1993, I had my first opportunity to lay the groundwork for a connection between this style and the photographs taken at Densatil (gdan sa mthil) by P.F. Mele during the expedition led by Professor Giuseppe Tucci of the Italian ISMEO in 1948.

Drafted in haste for an auction catalog based on the few sources available at the time, this text quickly proved to be incomplete and erroneous in certain respects, but it served as the starting point for the “Densatil Project,” which aims to gather all the photographs, publications, and information that have become available since then in order to compile a “catalog raisonné” that is as comprehensive as possible.

We are currently considering gradually making the catalog available online. In the meantime, you can always refer to my article published in 2020 on asianart.com, which outlines the key historical events that led to the construction of the monastery’s eight tashigomangs between 1267 and 1435. Many of the objects were already listed there.

https://www.asianart.com/articles/densatil/index.html

However, as research progresses thanks to the discovery of new artifacts and new information, some artifacts that I had previously attributed to a specific tashigomang have since been reclassified chronologically. An updated version of the article is also in progress.

In the meantime, if you'd like to use this article as the basis for a publication, please feel free to contact me to verify that the attribution details you're interested in haven't changed.

To propose the inclusion of a work in the catalog raisonné and/or to obtain a document confirming its inclusion in the catalog raisonné that specifies which of the eight major tashigomangs it most likely comes from and its location on that tashigomang, you can contact me at the following link:

CATALOGUE DENSATIL