Lot 128

Old chips and abrasions throughout, please contact us for further images


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Property from a Private Roman Collection
Christie's New York, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, 21 September 2007 lot 70

These elegant musicians or gandharvas would originally have formed part of the decoration of a Jain or Hindu temple constructed in what is now known as the Solanki style. Between the 11th and 13th centuries the Solanki Dynasty ruled parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat in northwest India and the architecture of temples built at this time was structured with a complex design of repeating projections and recesses, accommodating a multiplicity of sharply carved statues in niches. The display wall and mouldings were adorned with continuous lines of horse riders, elephants, and kirttimukhas. Hardly any segment of the surface was left undecorated.

There are a great many gandharvas in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythology and they accompany and entertain the higher gods. The flight of these celestial creatures is suggested by their pose: legs lifted off the ground, knees bent, back legs thrown upward, and the deeply curved bodies billow like sails. One boy is holding a sitar-like stringed instrument; the other, in a similar pose, holds a drum and fragmentary arms suggest that he was part of a larger group. They both wear crisply carved necklaces, armlets and bracelets and their elegant coiffures seem to form halos above their ecstatic faces. Except in the early periods, the Indian sculptor did not use wings to depict flying figures. Instead, he relied upon movement and the posture of the body.

Ronan Sulich | Senior Adviser, Sydney