SOUTH INDIA, TAMIL NADU, PALLAVA PERIOD, CIRCA 9TH/10TH CENTURY

Details

A Granite Figure of Vishnu
South India, Tamil Nadu, Pallava Period, circa 9th/10th Century
The four-armed deity well carved seated in dhyanasana on a shaped plinth, his principal right hand in abhaya mudra and bearing a conch and a staff in his upper hands, with a broad band of necklaces with beaded festoons down the center, his face slightly turned with a benign expression and surmounted by an elaborate conical headdress
35 in. (88.8 cm.) high

Provenance

C. T. Loo, Paris, 1952

Lot Essay

Compare another Pallava period example of Vishnu in lalitasana at the British Museum, see T. Blurton, "South India", in: Arts of Asia, vol. 28, no. 2, fig. 142, p. 120; for a stylistic comparison, see a granite figure of Shridevi in the Alsdorf Collection, in P. Pal, A Collecting Odyssey, 1997, cat. no. 245.

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