
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
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Sold for US$18,825 inc. premium
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International Director

Head of Sale, Specialist
This striking image of a ten-armed ogre riding a white elephant joined by a bird-headed mahout almost certainly depicts a supreme form of Bhairava, the wrathful manifestation of Shiva appearing in both Hindu and Buddhist contexts. The preponderance of snakes and scorpions as well as his serpentine locks indicate this, given that Bhairava is an earth-deity in Sri Lanka. A closely related fragmentary mural at Mulkirigala temple depicts a four-armed version of Bhairava, known as Siyavatuka—similarly fanged and steel-blue (Bandaranayake, The Rock and Wall Paintings of Sri Lanka, p.217, pl.111). Siyavataku often appears as a guardian of the entrance to Sri Lankan cave temples.
Stylistically, this painting belongs to the 18th-to-19th-century 'Southern Tradition' of Sri Lankan mural painting, as dubbed by Bandaranayake (ibid., p.201). See a mural of the ogre-god Mara riding a similarly caparisoned elephant at a temple in Telvatta (ibid., pp.236-7, pl.128).
Provenance
Private Florida Collection since 1997