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Lot 3230
A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF PARVATI TAMIL NADU, CHOLA PERIOD, CIRCA 11TH CENTURY
20 March 2018, 18:30 EDT
New YorkUS$60,000 - US$80,000
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A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF PARVATI
TAMIL NADU, CHOLA PERIOD, CIRCA 11TH CENTURY
18 3/4 in. (48.1 cm) high
18 3/4 in. (48.1 cm) high
Footnotes
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