Page 96 - Maitri CollectionAsian Art Bonhams

“The day of her birth brought happiness
to all beings who move on the earth or
live rooted in place. The wind was freed of dust. The air
was clear. Conches blew and the sky rained flowers.

The mother shone more brightly surrounded
by the shining splendor of the daughter, as the land
is radiant near the Vidura hills when at the sound of new
thunder, its veins of jewels spring open.

Her rising begun, she put on day
by day ever more beautiful qualities
as the crescent moon will grow new surfaces
that were hidden inside its light.”

Her loving family praised her with an ancestral name,
Parvati, Daughter of the Mountain...”

(Kumarasambhavam by Kalidasa (4th-5th century), verses 23-6, translated by
Hank Heifetz, 2014)

3230
A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF PARVATI
TAMIL NADU, CHOLA PERIOD, CIRCA 11TH CENTURY
18 3/4 in. (48.1 cm) high

$60,000 - 80,000

Parvati is associated with fertility, love, and devotion. Considered the epitome of female
perfection, particularly as it expresses itself in alignment with marital, societal, and
dharmic concord, she is beloved as the ideal maiden, wife, and mother. Moreover,
through the prism of Shaktism, she is the active animating force, enlivening her
counterpart Shiva with skill, power, and prowess.

Here, she wears a tall crown resembling piled rings of diminishing size topped by a lotus
bud called a karanda mukata. Her right hand is raised in the gesture of holding a flower
(kataka mudra) while the left hangs beside her thigh. The iconography suggests she
would have been made to partner a Shiva, perhaps a Nataraja, as Shivakamasundari, or
as a combined Umasahati Deva (cf. Nagaswamy, Timeless Delight, Ahmedabad, 2006,
nos.2 & 14, respectively), among several other possibilities.

She is cast with an elegant silhouette, agile with a degree of naturalism and fluidity about
her tribhanga pose that otherwise becomes hardened and static in later Chola bronzes of
the 12th and 13th centuries. She is comparatively slender, with modest and less overtly
globular bosom in keeping with earlier Chola bronzes. Her small sirischakra intact behind
her head, and the absence of ornaments hugging the arcs of her ears, also suggest an
early period. However, other regalia associated with the mature Chola style, such as her
makara-snout earrings, the layered design of her necklaces, the numerous rings, and her
tall crown type situate the bronze within the 11th century - around the transition between
traditionally regarded early and late Chola periods (cf. Sivaramamurti, South Indian
Bronzes, New Delhi, 1963, pp.24-43).

Provenance
Collection of Marinos Costeletos, acquired London, early 1980s
Jeremy Knowles, London 21 December 2006
Collection of John Bowden, 2006-c.2010

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