Celestial Woman Undressed by a Monkey

Former TitleA Celestial Nymph

CultureIndian

Dateca. 975-1000

MediumBuff sandstone

DimensionsOverall: 23 3/4 × 10 1/4 inches (60.33 × 26.04 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Mrs. George H. Bunting Jr.

Object number81-27/26

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionFigure of a minor female deity clad in a think skirt slipping from her hips, and thick-pleated scarves which lend a suggestion of modesty to the upper torso; complex twisting stance presenting a view of her back wtih right leg unweighted, shoulders turned to reveal the side of her down-turned head beneath arms raised above and behind her shoulders in the activity of binding her long hair; a genie pulls at her skirt from below.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Those Beguiling Women, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 27-October 30, 1983, no. 39 as A Surasundari (a celestial nymph).

A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 14-December 6, 1987, no. 27 as A Celestial Nymph Plaiting Her Hair.

Gods, Guardians and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India, 700-1200, The Asia Society, New York, March 29-August 15, 1993; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, October 8-November 28, 1993, no. 13 as Celestial Woman Undressed by a Monkey.

Gallery Label

This beautiful woman belongs to a class of minor deities known as apsaras (celestial nymphs). Specifically, she is a surasundari or “beautiful celestial female,” and would have originally been located high upon the exterior wall of a temple, along with other heavenly figures. In this sensuous and humorous scene, the surasundari raises her right arm to bind her long hair while a monkey pulls the thin patterned garment from her hips. Richly ornamented, the surasundaris often display specific styles of jewelry, hair, dress, and facial features that characterize their amorous nature and enigmatic grace.

Provenance

With William H. Wolff, Inc., New York, stock no. 02/931D, by November 15, 1968;

Purchased from William H. Wolff, Inc., by Karen Dean Bunting (1912-1981), Mission Hills, Kansas, November 15, 1968-1981 [1];

Her bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1981.

NOTES:

[1] Wolff's invoice to Bunting is in the Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Published References

Those Beguiling Women, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 10, 37, (repro.).

Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 72-73, (repro.).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 209, 211, (repro.).

Darielle Mason, “New Perspectives on the Temple Sculptures of Northern India,” in Orientations 24, no. 7 (July 1993): 39-40, fig. 7, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 380, (repro.).

Vishakha N. Desai and Darielle Mason, Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India: A.D. 700-1200, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries in association with Mapin Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, 1993), 160-61, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 265, fig. 25, (repro.).

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kimberly Masteller, Masterworks from India and Southeast Asia: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kanas City, Missouri: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in association with University of Washington Press, 2016), 20-21, fig. 15, 58-61, (repro.).

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