Footnotes

Published:
Kunstzaal Van Lier, Sculptures indiennes de la collection C.T. Loo à Paris, 1938, no.5.
Anonymous, Bulletin van de Vereeniging an vrienden der Aziatische Kunst (Maandblad voor de beeldende kunsten), 1940, Vol.17, pp.63-64, fig.A.
H. F. E. Visser, Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium, Amsterdam, 1948, p.193, fig.331.
Anonymous, Kunstbezit van oud-alumni der Leidse Universiteit, 1950, p.62, fig.230.

Exhibited:
Sculptures indiennes de la collection C.T. Loo à Paris, Kunsthandel C. van Lier, Amsterdam, 3 September - 1 October 1938.
Wat onze verzamelaars onlangs hebben verworven, Museum for Asiatic Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, February 1940.
Kunstbezit van oud-alumni der Leidse Universiteit, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden, June 1950.

Provenance:
Collection of C. T. Loo, Paris, acquired by 1938
Collection of Dr. W. M. Houwing, Amsterdam, acquired by 1940
By descent to Private Dutch Collector
Christie's, Paris, 12 December 2019, lot 237


The consort of Shiva, Parvati is associated with fertility, love, and devotion. Considered the epitome of female perfection, particularly when this ideal is expressed in alignment with marital, societal, and dharmic concord, she is beloved as the perfect 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, Parvati wears a tall crown resembling piled rings of diminishing size called akaranda mukata. Her right hand is raised in the gesture of holding a flower (kataka mudra) while the left lingers seductively beside her thigh (lolahasta mudra). 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 late Chola bronzes of the 12th and 13th centuries. She is "willowy, tall and slender, with softly rounded breasts", as Dehejia has described other Chola Parvatis of the 10th century (Dehejia, The Thief Who Stole My Heart, 2021, p.102). Additionally, the comparative restraint in her ornamentation, such as the absence of ornate jeweled clasps hugging the arcs of her ears, or makara-snout earrings resting on her shoulders, help situate the bronze within the 10th century, within a period traditionally regarded as early Chola (cf. Sivaramamurti, South Indian Bronzes, 1963, pp.24-43).

Describing the foundation of the early Chola style by the mid-10th century, Dehejia notes:
"There is nothing tentative about the workmanship of these first processional bronzes. Despite the political instability of a struggling and nascent Chola kingdom, skilled artists working in wax modeling workshops that were attached to metal foundries produced stately bronzes of rare elegance that convey an assured sense of artistic maturity. Certain moments in time generate unprecedented originality and creativity, and the early Chola period is one such rare moment." (Dehejia, 2021, p.38).

This elegant Parvati finds its closest stylistic comparisons with other bronzes attributed to the second half of the 10th century. For example, the bold floret textile designs that enliven her formfitting lower garment are shared by a goddess in the Cleveland Museum of Art attributed c.950 (Dehejia,The Sensuous and the Sacred, 2002, p.123, no.12). The design also appears on a bronze Sita in the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, attributed c.980-90 (ibid., p.191, no.47). Additionally, the Sita displays a similar encircling body-chain (channavira) that comes together between the present Parvati's breasts and then meets again along her spinal column, which is also worn by Parvati sculptures attributed to c.979 in the Calico Museum of Textiles & The Sarabhai Foundation Collections, Ahmedebad, and Konerirajapuram temple in Tamil Nadu (Dehejia, 2021, pp.102-5, figs.4.6 a-b & 4.8 a-b). The face and crown compare favorably with a late 10th-century standing image of Parvati in the Thanjavur Art Gallery (Barrett, Early Chola Bronzes, 1965, no.22). Also see examples of Parvati in Somaskanda groups (Czuma, Indian Art from the George P. Bickford Collection, 1975, no.19; Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art, 1994, fig.33, p.51).