Page 68 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art September 2013

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A copper alloy figure of a Digambara Jina
Karnataka or Tamil Nadu, 9th century
Solid cast, standing “sky clad” in the body-abandoning pose (kayotsarga)
and modeled with supple curvature and latent strength, his slender arms
extending from broad shoulders below a fleshy waist, a characteristic
srivatsa mark appears above his right breast, while his face features a
prominent lower lip, a nose like a garuda’s beak, high arched brows, and
eyes cut with a single opening.
17 1/2 in. (44.4 cm) high
$100,000 - 150,000
The present lot possibly originates from Karnataka, where Jains were cited
as being instrumental to the establishment of both Ganga (350-1000
CE) and Hoysala dynasties (1026–1343 CE) and where Jain communities
flourished under continuous royal patronage (see Pal, The Peaceful
Liberators: Jain Art form India, 1994, p. 20), but it is more likely that it and their spiritual achievements. As Jan van Alphen comments: “They
was cast in Tamil Nadu, where Jainism experienced a revival in the 8th
and 9th centuries following an influx of Jain migrants from Karnataka.
(Tamil Nadu had previously been a stronghold for Jain worship until the
popularity of Hindu bhakti saints dominated the region, converting Jain
Pallava kings in turn. For further discussion, see Granoff (ed.), Victorious and Religion, Antwerp, 2000, p.43). Modeled with a supple curvature
Ones: Jain Images of Perfection, New York, 2009, p. 208.) A greater
number of similar Jain bronzes survive from Tamil Nadu, albeit but a
handful, from which to compare and attribute.
The closest related sculpture held in a North American museum is located
in the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art and appears on the front cover
of Pal, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art form India, 1994. The two share
similar ovoid faces with a slightly pointed crowns, high arching brows and
v-shaped lips. Combining these physiognomic details, they are set apart
from other examples from the region and period, which share only one or
two features in addition to the more commonly shared characteristics of
slightly upturned pendulous earlobes, broad sloping shoulders, and fleshy
waists. Among these is a standing Jina from the 8th century held in the
Rockefeller collection (see Granoff (ed.), The Victorious Ones: Jain Images
of Perfection 2009, no. S 25, p. 208), another attributed to circa 900
(in Pal, The Elegant Image: Bronzes from the Indian Subcontinent in the
Siddharth K. Bhansali Collection, Mumbai, 2011, no. 83 p 154), and an
11th century example from a private collection (see Granoff (ed.), 2009,
no. S 29, p. 216-7). The last of which demonstrates by contrast that by
the 11th century the form of the bronze Jina became more stylized with a
rounder face, ballooning thighs, and greater curvature and rigidity to the
arms, as discussed by Phyllis Granoff (ibid.).
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One strikingly rare feature the present lot shares only with the Rockefeller
Jina amongst this group is the shrivatsa mark appearing above the right
breast. Whereas this auspicious mark appears ubiquitously at the center of
the chest of any Jina from North India from as early as the second century
onwards, it is extremely rare amongst South Indian Jain images, and
Granoff argues is unique to images from Tamil Nadu (ibid., p.208).
This figure, produced by members of the Digambara sect, represents
one of the twenty-four figures making up the heart of the Jain religion,
teachers who developed the doctrines and achieved victory over the
cycle of rebirth. One of three great Indian faiths, Jainism is subdivided,
for the most part, into two sects: the Svetambara, whose monks wear
white clothes, and the Digambara, whose monks walk naked, reinforcing
the Jain doctrines on material renunciation and control over the senses.
Unlike Hindu sculptures, the Jina image is not viewed as a vessel the
deity inhabits, rather it serves as a reminder of the twenty-four exemplars
serve only as a means by which the spirit can be diverted from earthly
desire and affliction and directed towards the transcendent. Meditating
on these images brings the believer closer to the great examples, the
Liberated souls.”(van Alphen, Steps to Liberation: 2,500 years of Jain Art
and latent strength that blends the sensual and spiritual, the natural and
superhuman, the current example is an exquisite symbol of the quest of
the soul within the human body.
Provenance:
The object was passed by descent from the estate of Mrs. Julian B.
Herrmann, the majority of which was sold by Christie’s, New York
in 1977-8. Mrs. Herrmann was the niece of Eric Cohn who would
accompany and advise her on antiquing trips to Europe in the 1920s
and 30s. Eric Cohn, in turn, was closely associated with Serge Sebarsky
who co-assembled the collection of the Neue Galerie New York. An
in-depth third-party report analyzing the object’s surface indicates that
the present lot was at some point cleaned using a process of electrolytic
reduction that was popular in Northern Europe around the early 20th
century, but has been little used since. This therefore would be consistent
with the likelihood that Mrs. Herrmann purchased the bronze on one of
her antiquing trips. The other possibility is that the piece was bought on
the New York market between the 50s and 60s before her unfortunate
decline in health in the early 70s. After the sale of Mrs. Herrmann’s estate
in 1978 the current owner commissioned an appraisal which documents
the piece in her possession by 1978.