Rare Inscribed 18th – 19th Century Singing Bowl – Superb Bb3 Voice

Unusual Antique Singing Bowl.   Note Bb3 (236Hz) Crown Chakra


Weight 3 lb 7 ½ oz. (1.57 kilos).   Size 18.5 x 11 cm (approx. 7 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches)

PLUS a tiny similar bowl included free with the above.

This is a very unusual singing bowl of considerable age and with an exceptionally fine voice.   It’s a heavy bowl too, weighing well over 1 ½ kilos (3 ½ pounds), and its unusual shape and thick walls would have made it difficult to forge.  

It has a rare downward-sloping grooved lip and a flat bottom.  The walls are decorated with multiple incised bands inside and out, and the inside floor has 8 well-defined concentric circles radiating from its centre.  It also benefits from a long dot-punched inscription around about a third of its circumference on the outer wall.  Inscriptions are generally a fair indication of the high regard in which a bowl was held by one of its former keepers, and they always add both interest and value.

This bowl has a fabulous voice.  The struck note is sonorous third octave Bb (236Hz) with a marked pulse and a long sustain.  The rim note is the same Bb when played with a suede ringer, but changes to an excellent and high fifth octave E (658Hz) if a wooden ringer is employed.  The bowl is structurally sound and in excellent condition for its age.

This beautiful bowl was recently sourced in Nepal together with other assorted antique bowls collected in the same region. 

Among them was a tiny bowl having virtually the same rare shape and decorative features, and it seems reasonable to assume that both came from the same forge and probably the same household.  I have therefore decided to keep them together and will include it as a gift for the buyer of the larger bowl.  The small bowl weighs 228g (8 oz) and measures 10 x 5 cm (4 x 2 inches) and has a B4 (481Hz) voice.

A Tibetan silk brocade bowl cushion and a double-ended teak and suede ringer are included in the price.

{audio}uthado1570bb3.mp3{/audio}

Listen: (3 struck notes and 2 played notes, suede then wood ringers)