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Lot Essay
Ganesha is depicted here dancing atop a lotus, holding his goad, conch, tusk and bowl of sweets, his trunk curling playfully to his left, and a naga wrapped around his belly, flanked by musicians. Although there are countless representations of Ganesha dancing, the present type is perhaps the most dynamic and graceful. With his hips swayed and his right foot slightly raised, his pose echoes that of his father’s dancing form, Shiva Nataraja. Ganesha's dance, however, has a childlike quality that contrasts with the cosmic destruction of Shiva’s Nataraja form. With his dance, Ganesha carries away all obstacles; his rotund belly reinforces his powers to shower his devotees with abundance.
This representation seems to have captivated the sculptors of Central India as demonstrated by the array of fine and lively examples produced between the eighth and eleventh centuries. The S-shape formed by the present figure’s robust yet supple limbs and accentuated by negative space, very closely resembles that of an example in the Denver Museum of Art dated to the tenth-eleventh century (acc. no. 1968.24), while Ganesha’s finely arched brows and narrow headdress are comparable to a tenth-century example illustrated by P. Pal in A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, 1997, p. 60 and 287, cat. no. 70, and subsequently sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 2011, lot 42. The present work, made from a single block of soft sandstone is a dynamic figure that surely belies the heaviness of its composition and represents a well-executed example of its type.
This representation seems to have captivated the sculptors of Central India as demonstrated by the array of fine and lively examples produced between the eighth and eleventh centuries. The S-shape formed by the present figure’s robust yet supple limbs and accentuated by negative space, very closely resembles that of an example in the Denver Museum of Art dated to the tenth-eleventh century (acc. no. 1968.24), while Ganesha’s finely arched brows and narrow headdress are comparable to a tenth-century example illustrated by P. Pal in A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, 1997, p. 60 and 287, cat. no. 70, and subsequently sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 2011, lot 42. The present work, made from a single block of soft sandstone is a dynamic figure that surely belies the heaviness of its composition and represents a well-executed example of its type.