Page 52 - Indian and Himalayan Art Mar 21, 2018 NYC

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED EUROPEAN COLLECTION

321
A LARGE BRONZE FIGURE OF PARVATI
SOUTH INDIA, TAMIL NADU, VIJAYANAGARA PERIOD, The current fgure is the mate to the important bronze fgure of Shiva
14TH/15TH CENTURY Chandrashekhara from The Collection of Robert Hatfeld Ellsworth, sold at
27Ω in. (70 cm.) high Christie’s New York, 17 March 2015, lot 34 (fg. 1). The two works were on
$250,000-350,000 loan together at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from the esteemed
collector, Christian Humann, from 1972 until his death in 1981, when Robert
PROVENANCE Ellsworth purchased them and hundreds of other sculptures and paintings
Christian Humann (d.1981), Pan-Asian Collection, New York, by 1972. that made up the renowned Pan-Asian Collection.
Collection of Robert H. Ellsworth, New York, acquired by 1982.
Christie’s New York, 17 September 2003, lot 41. The Shiva Chandrashekhara and the Parvati are clearly the work of the same
workshop and period. The elongated oval face, with angular nose and almond-
EXHIBITED
On loan to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1972-1982 (L.72.23.6). shaped eyes, surmounted by a particularly tall chignon of hair is shared by
On loan to the Denver Art Museum, 1981 (61.1981). both fgures. Similarly, the treatment of the multiple belts of each fgure,
with rounded and rectangular plaques at the front, including one strand that
Following the demise of the Chola empire towards the end of the thirteenth stretches across the front of the thighs, is almost identical. Both fgures also
century, the Vijayanagara empire became the inheritors of the former’s share an elongated and particularly waisted double-lotus base over the square
great sculptural and architectural traditions. By the ffteenth century, the plinth, with similarly incised lotus petals. The Shiva fgure is taller by about
sprawling capital city of the same name was by various accounts one of the seven inches, which can be accounted for by the swayed posture of the Parvati
most populous and wealthy cities in Asia. Sculpturally, the artisans of the fgure and the slight dimorphism between male and female bronze images
Vijayanagara borrowed heavily from the Chola style, but also established from South India. Both fgures also share dark patinas.
their own precedents. The idealized naturalism of the Chola period was
slowly transformed into a more stylized aesthetic with a greater emphasis Few other Vijayangara Parvati fgures of this magnitude are known: a highly
on dynamism and musculature. Such mannered features can be found important and large bronze fgure of Parvati, slightly taller than the present
in the present sculpture in the exaggerated sway of the tribhanga pose, work and once on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, was sold at
the sharp ridge of the shins, the full hips and breasts, and the tall, almost Christie’s New York, 21 March 2007, lot 257. Another fgure, of similar size
conical headdress. and with the same unusual looped earrings, was sold at Christie’s New York,
23 September 2004, lot 48. Two other comparable works, but of later date,
reside in the Tanjavur Art Gallery, Tanjavur and at the National Gallery of India,
New Delhi, illustrated by C. Sivaramamurti in South Indian Bronzes, New Delhi,
1963, fgs. 80a and 80b.
印度南部 泰米爾納德邦 毗奢耶那伽羅王朝 十四/十五世紀 雪山神女銅像

An important bronze fgure of Shiva Chandrashekhara,
South India, Tamil Nadu, Vijayanagara period, 15th Century,
sold at Christie’s New York, 17 March 2015, lot 34, for $665,000.