INDIA, MADHYA OR UTTAR PRADESH, 12TH CENTURY

Evolving from Gupta idioms, the medieval sculpture of Central India reaches ever greater movement by the 12th century, delving into contours and ornamentation, of which this celestial woman is a superb example and a tour de force in sculptural virtuosity. Her dramatic prishthasvastika pose (back-auspicious), from the idiom of classical Indian dance, is further emphasized by the jewelled necklaces and festoons clinging to the contours of ther body, capturing the essence of movement. She would have served as a bracket figure. The combination with a fruit-bearing tree, her fertile touch causing the vegatation to respond in kind, is a popular symbol of fertility further symbolizing the generative force of the divine; a stylistically very closely related torso, form the Lenart Collection, is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see P. Pal, Indian Sculpture, vol. 2, 1988, cat. no. 44, p. 114f., and two related companion pieces are at the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, see P. Pal, Art from the Indian Subcontitnent, 2003, cat. no. 87, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see M. Lerner and S. Kossak, The Arts of South and Southeast Asia, 1994, fig. 44. p. 49.