Page 30 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

830
A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF DEVI
SOUTH INDIA, PUDUKOTTAI, PANDYA PERIOD, 9TH CENTURY
6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm) high
$60,000 - 80,000

Tall, slender, and light of foot above her circular pedestal, this sculpture’s depiction of the
female form is in rare contrast to vast majority of fulsome goddesses in Indian art. She
stands elegantly poised with one leg bent and unencumbered by ostentatious garments or
jewelry. In her raised left hand remains the stem of a flower. She smiles and wears her hair
in a delightful rounded bun, while the tilt of her head lends her a demure affect, again in
contrast with the greater number of bold Indian icons.

Her distinctiveness is in part explained by her rarity as one of few published bronzes from
the First Pandyan Empire (6th-10th centuries). The Pandyas are one of three Tamil dynasties
in South India, whose art has so far been overshadowed by that of the contemporaneous
Cholas and Pallavas.

The paucity of published Pandyan bronzes hamper direct comparisons, yet the treatment
of her anatomy and garments securely dates her to the 9th century, in keeping with
contemporaneous Pallava art (see Sivaramamurti, South Indian Bronzes, New Delhi, 1963,
p.26, fig.9a). A 9th-century Pandyan Shiva Nataraja is cast with a similar slender form, facial
type, and amount of ornamentation (Guy, Indian Temple Sculpture, London, 2007, p.125,
pl.139).

Pal reflects on the gentle character exhibited by these diminutive Pandyan bronzes that
provide a rare and intimate connection with popular piety in India’s distant past (Pal, The
Elegant Image, New Orleans, 2011, 117). Her identity, he intuits, might be a queen in divine
guise, in line with a Tamil tradition (cf. Dehejia, The Sensuous and the Sacred, Seattle, 2002,
pp.122-7, no.14). However, her rounded coiffure and iconography might also allow for the
possibility that this elegant woman is a divine consort of one of Vishnu’s avatars, such as
Krishna’s wife Rukmini or Rama’s wife Sita (e.g. ibid., pp.189-91 & 200, nos.47 & 52).

Regardless of her mysterious identity, this rare treasure of an Indian bronze visually evokes
a timeless Indian tradition of sacralizing feminine grace – her attenuated character, stance,
and smile somewhat at once redolent of both the famed c.2500 BCE Mohenjo Daro
bronze Dancing Girl in the National Museum, New Delhi, and Ramkinker Baij’s Sujata at
Santiniketan from India’s modern art movement.

Published
Pal, The Elegant Image: Bronzes from the Indian Subcontinent in the Siddharth K. Bhansali
Collection, New Orleans, 2011, p.116, fig.26.

Provenance
Collection of Siddharth K. Bhansali, New Orleans
Acquired in London between 1978-83

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