Following on from my post yesterday of a headdress that wasn’t on display at the Peace Palace exhibition in March, today we look at a gorgeous artifact that was on show amongst the recently returned sculptures and jewelry. In February of this year, this chignon or hair covering was one of the 77 items of Angkorian jewelry that was returned to Cambodia and had been part of the personal collection of the disgraced art dealer Douglas Latchford, and kept in storage in London since his death in 2020. Latchford, as with many pieces he was trying to both legitimize and sell to the highest bidder through their inclusion in three scholarly books he wrote with Emma Bunker, included this particular artifact in his 2008 book, Khmer Gold. In it he described it as a rising conical chignon-cover, stylistically related to a jewelry set including diadems and bracelets in the book, which he said were created during the second-half of the 12th century. The cover is made of amalgam-gilded silver, and would have functioned as statuary jewelry on a sculpture, for which he included an example on a Prajnaparamita statue, both pieces he admitted to owning in the book. That idea is a little strange as the cover would hide perhaps the most important symbol of Prajnaparamita, and that is the small seated Amitabha Buddha which would’ve been etched into the front of the chignon. This denotes her radiant spiritual power that sheds its light over all things in her role as the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’ and mother of all Buddhas. Perhaps this chignon-cover with lotus-petal ornamentation, concealing the braided hair in a conical spire underneath, was utilized for other female statues such as Lakshmi or Uma. This is just one of the priceless Khmer treasures that have been returned to Cambodia from overseas thanks to the unstinting work of the Cambodia Restitution team and government officials at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, who are relentless in their desire to see the return of Cambodia’s looted heritage.
