The Guennol ritual copper anthropomorphic figure, Northern India, circa 1500-1000 BC

The Guennol Collection (collection of Alastair Bradley Martin and Edith Martin), and thence by descent.

The Guennol Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1969, cat. no. 109.

Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1970-2024.

Amy G. Poster, The Guennol Collection, vol. II, New York, 1975, pp 55-58.

This enigmatic object, depicting a stylized version of a man with curved outstretched arms, represents one of the earliest known bronze ritual objects from India. It is a highly dynamic and evocative work of art. Cast of pure copper, a relatively soft metal, it was clearly made for dedicatory use. Several hoards of these figures have been found across North India, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where they were ritually deposited in rivers or marshes.

The scholar P. H. Agravala has argued in Early Indian Bronzes, Varanasi, 1977, p. 37 for a possible ritualistic use of these forms as religious symbols, prototypes of the sri-vatsa symbol, a mark on the chest of Vishnu, which represents a lock of the hair of his consort Lakshmi. Tapan Kumar in Das Gupta, Der Vajra eine vedische Wolffe, Weisbaden, 1975, has speculated that the figure is a precursor of the vajra symbol.

A closely related example, formerly in the collection of Samuel Eilenberg, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 2001.433.5). See also another closely related example sold at Christie’s New York, 20th March 2019, lot 651.