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The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room is a permanent installation at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., recreating the domestic shrine of a Tibetan Buddhist aristocratic family. The room draws entirely from the collection of Dr. Alice S. Kandell, a New York child psychologist and photographer who assembled the objects over roughly five decades, beginning with trips to Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh in her college years. The collection was first shown publicly in 2010 as part of "In the Realm of the Buddha, " then formally gifted to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in 2011 in the presence of the 14th Dalai Lama. It comprises gilt-bronze and bronze sculpture, thangka paintings, ritual implements, silk textiles, and painted Tibetan chests made in Tibet, China, Mongolia, and Nepal between the 13th and early 20th centuries. Unlike conventional museum display, the objects rest on painted furniture and amid textiles rather than behind glass, arranged in the dense, layered hierarchy of an actual household shrine, with ritual implements below and Buddha images placed higher. Flickering lamp-like lighting evokes butter-lamp offerings, and recorded monastic chanting accompanies visitors. No wall labels appear; object information is provided instead through digital kiosks outside the room. The installation sits within the Sackler Gallery on the National Mall. Photograph by David Coleman.