The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg received a small collection of Buddhist cult objects from Schlagintweit brothers (MAE No. 748) in 1868. Fyodor (Friedrich) Karlovich Russov (1828-1906), the first Curator of the academic Ethnographic Museum (later – Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography), was sent to Germany to study prehistoric antiquities and collections of famous scientists in German museums. At the same time Russov was the Curator at the Department of Engravings and Drawings of the Imperial Hermitage. The German brothers Schlagintweit offered their collection of Tibetan rarities to the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The collection includes four drawings of Tsam (Tib. ‘cham) mystery masks, quite different from the Mongolian masks. We note the triangular pieces of cloth attached to the bottom of the masks, as well as the fact that two masks have hair braided into thin braids like dreadlocks. This type of mask is common in the Ladakh (Tib. la dwags) region in northern India. Hermann Schlagintweit observed a religious performance at the Hemis Drukpa Kagyu Buddhist monastery in Ladakh in 1856; the performance was held specially for him (Tib. bstan pa’i shis). The youngest brother Emil Schlagintweit later described it in his book “Buddhism in Tibet”. The images of three masks from the MAE drawings coincide almost completely with the Tsam masks that arrived at the State Hermitage in 1945 from the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. This allows us to identify the Ladakh masks in the State Hermitage Museum collection and to associate them with the Indian journey of the famous Schlagintweit brothers.
