RARE STATUE MONUMENTALE DE LION EN GRES BEIGE

INDE, MADHYA OU UTTAR PRADESH, CIRCA VIIIEME SIECLE

Details

RARE STATUE MONUMENTALE DE LION EN GRES BEIGE
INDE, MADHYA OU UTTAR PRADESH, CIRCA VIIIEME SIECLE
The lion is sculpted in a crouching posture with its hind legs tucked under its body. Its head displays protruding eyes above a roaring snout with a mane carved from the top of its head to its neck. The lion's front paws hold an ornament carved with volutes. Its long tail is curled over its back.
42 in. (107 cm.) long, stand

Provenance

Pritzker family collection, Chicago.
Sotheby's New York, 25 March 1999, lot 152.
Alberto Pinto collection, France.

Literature

V. N. Desai and D. Mason (eds.), Gods, Guardians and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India AD 700 – 1100, The Asia Society Galleries, New York 1993, p. 148.
D. Mason, New Perspectives on the Temple Sculptures of Northern India, Orientations, July 1993, pp. 37-44, fig. 9.

Further details

A MONUMENTAL BUFF SANDSTONE FIGURE OF A LION
INDIA, MADHYA OR UTTAR PRADESH, CIRCA 8TH CENTURY

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Fiona Braslau

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Lot Essay

This imposing crouching lion was once placed on a flat ledge crowning the frontal projection of a temple that rised above the walls connecting a sanctum and hall to its exterior. This specific and prominent place does not only indicate the lion’s role as a guardian, but as well as an assistant in the process of divine illumination (Desai and Mason: 1993, p. 147 and 148). The fully carved and supple body with a naturalistic mane around its head suggests continuation from a late Gupta idiom and places this lion in the eighth century.

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