The red four-armed goddess is shown supported by the recumbent multi-headed Shiva within a shrine, the Torana above formed with Garuda, Nagas and a pair of mounted Makaras, supported by golden pillars. Shiva, Ganesha and Vishnu seated on their Vahanas within a snow-capped mountain landscape are shown flanking the central shrine. Above are a pair of garland-bearing Vidyadhara with the sun and the moon, and below are a gallery of Hindu gods including Ganesha, Shiva and Vishnu, all bordered with a multi-coloured floral pattern
Details
- Title : LALITA
- Year : 18th Century
- Classification : Painting
- Medium : Distemper on cloth
- Dimension : 27 x 22 1/2 in. (68.5 x 57 cm.)
- Accession No : GNM_LOT 22_PUN_15
- Country/ Geo-location : Nepal
- Collection : PUNDOLE’S
- Status : LIVE AUCTION The Fine Arts Sale (M0007) (as per NOV 2021)
- ESTIMATED : ₹1,200,000 - ₹1,800,000
- SOLD : ₹2,400,000
- PROVENANCE : Formerly in the Collection of Ernst and Angela Jucker, Ettingen, Switzerland / Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 74, no. 24.
- REGISTERED ANTIQUITY : NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM (Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale at the back of the catalogue.)
- NOTE : Compare the floral border with a Vishnu shrine paubha dated 1772, see Pratapaditya Pal, The Arts of Nepal: Part II, Painting, Leiden, 1978, pl. 120. Dr. Pratapaditya Pal comments on this representation of the goddess Lalita: 'Amazingly, the Jucker collection contains not one but two representations of the important Tantric goddess Lalita, the presiding deity of the powerful and esoteric rite of Sri-chakra, extolled by the great Hindu philosopher saint Shankaracharya (8th century or earlier). One of the two paintings even includes the potent yantra or mystical diagram...How perceptively different is the second contemporaneous representation of the same deity (the current lot). The importance of these paintings for the understanding of the theology of Lalita and the cult of Sri-chakra cannot be overemphasized.' (Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, 'The Jucker Collection: A Personal Appreciation', Sotheby's The Jucker Collection of Himalayan Paintings, New York, 2006, p. 9.)