† AN EXTRAORDINARY AND EXTREMELY RARE SANDSTONE FIGURE OF LAKSHMI-NARAYANA, CHANDELA PERIOD, 10TH-12TH CENTURY

Central India, Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh.

Superbly carved to depict Vishnu and Lakshmi embracing each other. They stand together in elegant tribhanga poses, Vishnu drawing Lakshmi close to him with his left arm around her back, his fingers unable to resist touching her fulsome bosom. Lakshmi bends her right knee to accommodate Vishnu's hip pressed against hers. She raises her head toward Vishnu with a charming smile, while he gazes at the viewer, offering darshan: a means for the viewer to receive the divine couple's blessings through eye contact. Both figures are richly bejeweled and wear necklaces, festooned girdles and tall crowns.

Provenance: A private collection in the United Kingdom. Jeremy Knowles, London, United Kingdom, by 2006. An important private collection in New York, United States, acquired from the above. A copy of the signed invoice from Jeremy Knowles, dated 1 September 2006, confirming the dating and provenance above, and stating a purchase price for the present lot of USD 125,000 or approx. EUR 170,000 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Furthermore, in an informal email communication from 2008, Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, who was well acquainted with the sculpture, expressed the view that it should be dated to the 12th rather than the 13th century. A copy of this correspondence will be made available to the winning bidder upon receipt of full payment. Jeremy Knowles has been dealing with Indian and Asian works of art for over 25 years, specializing in fine and decorative sculpture and paintings. After working as a specialist in the Indian and Southeast Asian department of Spink and Son Ltd., he established his own business in 1993. He has previously exhibited at Asian Art in London, the Arts of Pacific Asia show in New York, and the Brussels Oriental Art Fair. Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, born in 1935, is a renowned art historian and curator specializing in South Asian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art. Educated in Calcutta and at Cambridge, he served as curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He has published around 60 books and more than 250 scholarly articles. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
Condition: Magnificent condition, commensurate with age. Minor wear, obvious losses, natural imperfections, small chips, scattered nicks and scratches, as well as traces of weathering, erosion, and encrustations. Remarkably, works from the Chandela period seldom survive in such an exceptional state of preservation, making this example an unusually rare testament to both the durability of the material and the care with which it has been preserved over the centuries.

Weight: 61.5 kg (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 94 cm (excl. stand), 98 cm (incl. stand)

With a modern metal stand. (2)

The masterful treatment of form in this sculpture, with the tautly modeled flesh and elegant proportions is truly remarkable. Sculptures depicting the intimacy of Lakshmi and Vishnu or Shiva and Parvati were popular iconographic devices and usually ornamented large projecting niches on the exterior walls of medieval Indian temples, see a closely related example at Parshvanatha temple, Khajuraho, a 10th-century Digambara Jain temple now dedicated to Parshvanatha, although it was probably built as an Adinatha shrine during the Chandela period. Despite the temple's Jain affiliation, its exterior walls feature Vaishnavaite themes. The temple has been classified as a Monument of National Importance by the Archaeological Survey of India. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with other temples in the Khajuraho Group of Monuments, because of its outstanding art, architecture, and testimony of the Chandela period.

Lakshmi-Narayana is the dual representation of the Hindu deities Vishnu, also known as Narayana, and his consort, Lakshmi, traditionally featured in their abode, Vaikuntha. This dual manifestation of the supreme deities of Vaishnavism is explored in the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Skanda Purana, and in other scriptures. Discussing a contemporaneous sandstone stele from 10th-century Rajasthan in the Brooklyn Museum (86.191), Joan Cummins remarks that depictions of Lakshmi-Narayana are one of few instances where we see Vishnu in the sensuous tribhanga pose rather than standing straight and erect (see the exhibition catalog Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior, Frist Art Museum, 2011, p. 80, no. 14). She also points out that Lakshminarayana images offer rare instances of coupled images where a female Hindu goddess is depicted on the same scale as the male: "Where couples are so equally represented, they are to be worshiped together, as two halves of a whole."

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related sandstone sculpture of Lakshmi-Narayana, dated to the 11^th century, 127 cm high, in the National Museum, New Delhi, accession number 82 225.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 21 March 2001, lot 34
Price: USD 226,000 or approx. EUR 357,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A buff sandstone frieze of Vishnu, Lakshmi, Shiva and Parvati, India, Uttar Pradesh, 10^th century
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and manner of carving. Note the smaller size (81.2 cm) and that this lot comprises a frieze with four deities.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 September 2004, lot 43
Price: USD 71,700 or approx. EUR 104,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An Indian buff sandstone figure of Surasundari, Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh, 11^th century
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and manner of carving. Note the smaller size (78.7 cm) and there is only one figure left.