ANN: Unpacking Provenance: Retracing the Histories of Asian Art #3: A Himalayan Phurba (Tuesday, Mar 10, 2026, 3–4:15 p.m. CET, Online)

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz’s

Museum für Asiatische Kunst and Zentralarchiv (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), present

Unpacking Provenance: Retracing the Histories of Asian Art, a webinar series that brings together

cross-disciplinary specialists to discuss provenance research processes and share resources.

In this webinar, a panel of four experts discusses a Himalayan phurba, a ceremonial dagger in the

collections of the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) in Berlin. The phurba left the

Himalayan region and entered a private collection in Germany at an unknown point in time and

was sold to the museum in 1931 by its previous owner. Panelists will consider questions about

and approaches to researching its origin, its journey, and its significance within spiritual traditions

of the Himalayan region.