Mark Rasmussen
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Lot 3076W
A WOODEN PANEL OF KALI KERALA, LATE 15TH CENTURY
19 March 2018, 15:00 EDT
New YorkUS$60,000 - US$80,000
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A WOODEN PANEL OF KALI
KERALA, LATE 15TH CENTURY
44 x 12 x 9 in. (112 x 30.5 x 23 cm) approx.
44 x 12 x 9 in. (112 x 30.5 x 23 cm) approx.
Footnotes
All is divine within the Hindu worldview, and Kali expresses the wild and untamed aspects of our inner and outer existence. She is raw power, life that feeds on life, nature in its totality, and thus truly terrific. Potentially at odds with order and civilization, it only seems natural that most find her divinity perplexing, making Kali one of the most captivating deities in the Hindu pantheon.
Dehejia points out that in Tamil Nadu, and seemingly in neighboring Kerala, evinced by the present sculpture, Kali is not portrayed with a scorpion positioned on her sunken stomach (highlighting her emaciated state), as she is elsewhere in India and Nepal. Rather, whilst retaining her awesome powers, she is Bhadra-kali (Auspicious Kali): a beautiful young woman with uplifted breasts and smooth limbs, whose only concessions to her fearsome role are her weapons and two fangs: "evidently, the absence of physical beauty was a concept that did not fit too comfortably with the general vision of the divine, at least in the Tamil country." (Dehejia, The Body Adorned, New York, 2009, pp.134-5.)
The pair to this sculpture is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.85, 287), see Pal, Indian Sculpture, Los Angeles, 1988, pp.299-300, no. 164. As noted by Pal, the goddess, "is portrayed like a guardian," standing in a hieratic pose holding an upright sword. Her terrifying aspect is in no way diminished , with her gaping, fanged mouth and bulging eyes framed by an elaborate fan-like crown. Despite its distressed state, typical of wooden sculpture exposed to the harsh tropical environment of Southern India, the Kali has discernable features in the finely carved jewelry across her bare torso and the voluminous folds of the textiles that form her lower garment. Her power and foreboding presence radiates on every level.
Related examples can be found in the 15th century temple of Kazhakuttam, Kerala, as well as a 16th century temple at Ettumanur, see Kramrisch, Dravida and Kerala in the Art of Travancore , 1959, pls. 14, 34-5. Also compare with a seated figure of Kali dated to the 17th century, formerly in the Kornblum Collection, now in Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2011.5), and a fragment depicting Bhairavi, dated to the 17th century in Mallebrein, Skulpturen aus Indien, Munchen, 1984, p. 180, no. 147.
Published
Arman Neven, Sculpture des Indes, Brussels, 1978, p. 167, no. 87.
Exhibited
Sculpture des Indes, Société Générale de Banque, Brussels, 8 December 1978 - 31 January 1979.
Provenance
Private European Collection before 1978
Christie's, Amsterdam, 29 October 1981, lot 110
Private Collection, Los Angeles