Temple Dancers in the Dining Room

A couple of weekends ago J and I spotted this framed vintage temple rubbing leaning against the overstuffed shelves of a co-op booth in our favorite Brattleboro antiques store. This particular design is from one of the temples around Bangkok, Thailand and was most probably made in the early 1960's. Over the years, the Thai Government realized that this rubbing process, once a very popular way of reproducing the intricate carved designs on temple walls, was causing surface erosion and permanently damaging these ancient works of art. In 1995 the process of temple rubbings was banned, and the exportation of art created by this technique restricted. Despite that, you can still find vintage rubbings such as this one for $30 or $40.