A superbly cast large copper alloy figure of Parvati, Vijayanagara period, circa 14th century

The Pan-Asian Collection of Christian Humann (1924-1981), acquired before 1976.

Sotheby's New York, 5th December 1992, lot 122.

Formerly on loan to the Denver Art Museum, prior to 1980.

Now is the time, Durban Art Gallery, Durban, South Africa, 1995.

Parvati, embodiment of female beauty

Parvati, the goddess of the Himalayas, is the archetypal mother goddess and fertility image. Referred to as Uma in South India, she is the consort of Shiva and the mother to Ganesha and Skanda. This superbly cast and superbly sensual sculpture would have originally been placed inside a temple and carried in a religious procession so that devotees could see and engage with the deity. The finely cast figure is depicted standing in tribhanga with hips swung gently to the left, her hands poised in kataka and lola mudras, adorned in a long, diaphanous pleated dhoti, elaborate girdle decorated with sashes, with a meditation strand falling between her full rounded breasts, foliate armlets, broad beaded collar and tiered karandamukata, a circular openwork nimbus attached behind the head.

In the Hindu religion, fertility goddesses were an important component of early Indian nature cults, eventually assimilated into the symbolic repertoire of late Indian religious art. The prototype for the female torso was the damaru, the waisted hourglass-shaped drum held by the god Shiva. Closely adhering to the models specified in ancient texts, the master sculptors of the Chola and Vijayanagar period created an idealised female form with narrow waist, broad hips, high, sumptuously rounded breasts and shapely arms elongated to resemble the slender pliant bamboo shoot, and eyes modelled on the lotus petal or the fish. These young, beautiful, sensuous figures personify fertility, maternity, and Indian ideals of feminine beauty.

The current sculpture encapsulates this archetypal image of the female, embodying the fullness of femininity which includes both sacredness and sensuality. The style of this bronze, deriving directly out of the Chola dynasty bronzes, culminates into a standarised form as it develops within the Chola dynasty and into the Vijayanagar period. In his discussion of the current sculpture in The Sensuous Immortals. A Selection of Sculptures from the Pan-Asian Collection, Cambridge, Massachussets and London, 1977, p. 113, Pratapaditya Pal describes how the naturalism of the early style "has given way to a more mannered elegance." During this transition, gestures become more exaggerated, modeled and stylised. Here, the breasts are overly rounded, the protruding hip accentuated and the facial features, particularly the nose, prominent.

The current figure closely relates to another figure of Parvati, of similar form and with the same precise treatment of the sumptuous body, coiled hair, jewellery and other distinct features. This Parvati, originally also from the Pan-Asian Collection of Christian Humann, was sold in our London rooms, 7th December 2022, lot 1, from the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung. See also a closely related copper alloy figure of Parvati from the Vijayanagar period, from Ambavanodai and now in the Government Museum, Chennai, illustrated in Rustam Jehangir Mehta, Masterpieces of Indian Bronzes and Metal Sculpture, Taraporevala, 1981, pl. 75, and another in the Kimbell Art Museum, accession number AP 1969.13. An earlier depiction of Parvati from the Chola period, sold at Christie’s New York, 20th March 2007, lot 257, from the estate of Thomas T. Solley, was published by the distinguished scholar and collector Stuart Carey Welch in India, Art and Culture, New York, 1985,pp. 27-29, with an evocative description that applies equally to the current superb example:

"No one could deny the immense artistic and human appeal of this masterfully cast, crisply modelled and chased sculpture, with its sweetly compelling expression, superbly lissome yet ample figure, luxuriantly sinuous jewelry and coiffure, and costume vibrant with form-hugging folds. Late as it may be within South India's tradition of bronze casting, this is a powerful and movingly feminine envisionment of Shiva's consort Parvati, who represents generic woman - shakti, the tangible and noblest form of cosmic divine power - and is the benign aspect of Kali. Although as a tool for meditation (dhyana) the goddess could have been represented in other worshipful forms, she is embodied here as a stunning figurative image, a pratima. A devotee who is sufficiently pure in heart and able to take power from within can through the image's suprasensual beauty achieve the goal of worship: samadhi, or the merging of the perceiver with the perceived. At a yet higher spiritual level, this union of the divided divine can be affected without the image, by envisioning it in the mind's (or soul's) eye.

According to Tantric philosophy (as more widely practised in the north in medieval and post-medieval India), it is also possible to attain such release through worshipping a living woman, a human image: 'On a Friday [the worshipper] is to invite and summon a beautiful maiden pleasing to the eye, in the bloom of youth of great charm bedecked with all the auspicious symbols... and past puberty. He is to cleanse her body with bathing and ointments and place her upon the ceremonial seat. He is to adorn her according to the instructions, with perfumes, flowers, garments, and ornaments, and following this, adorn himself as well with ointments, flowers, and so forth. He is to install the deity into the maiden and offer her sacrifices through the ritual of touching. Once he has worshipped her in the proper ritual sequence, and sacrificed incense and candles to her... in his belief that she is the deity, he is to delight her, in in his loving devotion, with things to eat, each of which possesses one of the six types of flavors, with meat and other foods and sweetmeats. When he sees her delight at its peak, he is to utter the Goddess' sacred formula, himself filled with the joy of youthful vigor, and his thoughts totally immersed in the ritual image of the deity. Once he has with unwavering attention offered up to her the spoken formula, among other things, one thousand and eight times, let him pass the night with her. Whoever worships in this way for three, five, seven or nine Fridays receives benefits beyond measure deriving from his piety."

The current sculpture was originally in the Pan-Asian Collection formed by the New York-based French collector Christian Humann (1924-1981), and was acquired in these rooms in 1992 by the current owner, Anant Singh.

Anant Singh is a renowned South African film producer, acclaimed for the 2013 biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, based on Nelson Mandela's 1994 autobiographical book. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee, where he became Chair of the Communications Commission in 2018.