7th Mar, 2025 11:00
A Museum Treasury of Buddhist and Himalayan Art: The Peter Kienzle-Hardt Collection Part I
64
A SILVERED COPPER-ALLOY REPOUSSÉ SHIVALINGA COVER WITH FIVE FACES, 16TH-18TH CENTURY
This lot is a museum deaccession and is therefore offered without reserve
Sold for €1,040
including Buyer's Premium
North India, Himachal Pradesh. Of columnar form, fitted as a sheath for a stone linga, applied to the body with four heads of Shiva, the fifth to the top, all above a tightly coiled cobra to the base. Each mustachioed face is worked with a grim expression, wide eyes under thick brows, centered by a tilak, and the hair fashioned in a neat chignon to the top.
Provenance: Galerie Hardt (established in 1976), Radevormwald, Germany, before 2020. Acquired by the gallery’s founder Peter Hardt (b. 1946) during his extensive travels in Asia, the first of which occurred during a formative world tour in 1973. Throughout his storied career, Peter Kienzle-Hardt organized countless exhibitions and participated in major international art fairs. He made many important contacts during this time and eventually met the Kienzle siblings, who shared his passion for Asian art and culture. A strong bond and deep friendship developed, ultimately leading to the creation of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst decades later in 2014. While the museum’s permanent exhibition predominantly comprised pieces from the Kienzle Family Collection, Peter Kienzle-Hardt supplemented it with objects from his own collection. Before his death in 2019, Horst Kienzle bequeathed his entire property to Peter and legally adopted him as his son, who has been using the name Peter Kienzle-Hardt ever since.
Labels: Galerie Hardt, typed ‘Reg #156802, Shiva Lingam, Kupfer, Indien 18 Jh', and priced at EUR 4,750.
Condition: Good condition with expected wear, traces of use, and manufacturing irregularities. Minor warping and light dents, small dings, light scratches, few minor losses. Rubbing and losses to silvering. Remnants of gilt. The cobra hood lost.
Weight: 512.2 g
Dimensions: Height 23.2 cm
In Shaiva mythology, Shiva’s multiple forms are represented as four or five heads on a linga, an iconography known as chaturmukha or panchamukha linga. To indicate the power of the god, a protective cobra may extend over Shiva’s head in some sculptures. These anthropomorphic forms allow devotees to see and be seen by Shiva.
Panchamukha Shiva (the five-faced Lord Shiva) shows the five different forms of the Lord: Sadyojata (the Revealer), Vamadeva (the Concealer), Aghora (the Destroyer), Tatpurusha (the Cosmic Being) and Ishana (the Lord).
Literature comparison:
Compare a related Shivalinga cover with five faces, Himachal Pradesh, 16th century, 41.9 cm, accession number M.85.279.5.
North India, Himachal Pradesh. Of columnar form, fitted as a sheath for a stone linga, applied to the body with four heads of Shiva, the fifth to the top, all above a tightly coiled cobra to the base. Each mustachioed face is worked with a grim expression, wide eyes under thick brows, centered by a tilak, and the hair fashioned in a neat chignon to the top.
Provenance: Galerie Hardt (established in 1976), Radevormwald, Germany, before 2020. Acquired by the gallery’s founder Peter Hardt (b. 1946) during his extensive travels in Asia, the first of which occurred during a formative world tour in 1973. Throughout his storied career, Peter Kienzle-Hardt organized countless exhibitions and participated in major international art fairs. He made many important contacts during this time and eventually met the Kienzle siblings, who shared his passion for Asian art and culture. A strong bond and deep friendship developed, ultimately leading to the creation of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst decades later in 2014. While the museum’s permanent exhibition predominantly comprised pieces from the Kienzle Family Collection, Peter Kienzle-Hardt supplemented it with objects from his own collection. Before his death in 2019, Horst Kienzle bequeathed his entire property to Peter and legally adopted him as his son, who has been using the name Peter Kienzle-Hardt ever since.
Labels: Galerie Hardt, typed ‘Reg #156802, Shiva Lingam, Kupfer, Indien 18 Jh', and priced at EUR 4,750.
Condition: Good condition with expected wear, traces of use, and manufacturing irregularities. Minor warping and light dents, small dings, light scratches, few minor losses. Rubbing and losses to silvering. Remnants of gilt. The cobra hood lost.
Weight: 512.2 g
Dimensions: Height 23.2 cm
In Shaiva mythology, Shiva’s multiple forms are represented as four or five heads on a linga, an iconography known as chaturmukha or panchamukha linga. To indicate the power of the god, a protective cobra may extend over Shiva’s head in some sculptures. These anthropomorphic forms allow devotees to see and be seen by Shiva.
Panchamukha Shiva (the five-faced Lord Shiva) shows the five different forms of the Lord: Sadyojata (the Revealer), Vamadeva (the Concealer), Aghora (the Destroyer), Tatpurusha (the Cosmic Being) and Ishana (the Lord).
Literature comparison:
Compare a related Shivalinga cover with five faces, Himachal Pradesh, 16th century, 41.9 cm, accession number M.85.279.5.
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