Details
- Title : A GILT COPPER ALLOY REPOUSSÉ PLAQUE OF VAISHNAVI
- Year : 16TH/17TH CENTURY
- Classification : Sculpture
- Medium : GILT COPPER ALLOY
- Dimension : 16.5 cm (6 1/2 in.) high
- Accession No : GNM_LOT 3_BON_9
- Country/ Geo-location : Nepal
- Collection : Bonhams
- Status : Online only / Sold for €2,805 inc. premium
- Provenance : Private European Collection assembled in the 1960s and 1970s
- Footnotes : Seated on Garuda, a mythic eagle-man, Vaishnavi represents the source (shakti) of the Hindu god Vishnu's power. She is popularly worshipped in Nepal as part of a group of Mother Goddesses (maitrikas), joining several others in this sale. A similar representation can be seen in the side registers of a Nepalese painting with nine matrikas in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018.750). Stylistically, the plaque stems from the Late Malla period (1482–1768 CE), displaying a comparable treatment of its flaming aureole as a 16th-/17th-century repoussé sculpture of Lokeshvara in the Rubin Museum of Art, New York (C2003.46.2; HAR 65289). A pair of very similar plaques, formerly in The Virginia House Museum, Richmond, were offered by Christie's, New York, 11 September 2019, lot 369. Two further related plaques of Ganesha from the same period are published in Neven, Etudes d'art lamaïque et de l'Himalaya, Brussels, 1978, nos.149 & 150. Another is in the Art Institute of Chicago (2008.701), attributed to the 16th/17th century.