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Yakshi (Nature Spirit)

Artist School of Amaravati (Indian)
Date2nd century C.E.
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 4 1/2 inches (11.43 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number53-52
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 228
Exhibition History

Art of Greater India, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, March 1-April 16, 1950, no. 54 as Yaksi.

Master Bronzes of India, The Art Institute of Chicago, September 3-October 10, 1965; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, October 21-November 30, 1965; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January 18-February 27, 1966; Asia House Gallery, New York, October 12-December 11, 1966, no. 1 as Nature Spirit (Yakshi).

Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, November 12, 1985-January 5, 1986; The Asia Society Galleries, New York, February 13-April 6, 1986; Seattle Art Museum, Washington, May 13-July 13, 1986, no. 38 as Standing Yaksi.

Gallery Label
Only a handful of great Indian bronze sculptures survive from the early centuries of the first millennium c.e. This small sculpture of a voluptuous yakshi (a nature spirit) is one of them.
Provenance

With Heeramaneck Galleries, New York, by 1950;

Purchased from the Heeramaneck Galleries by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1953.

Published References

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art of Greater India: 3000 B.C.-2800 A.D., edited by Henry Trubner, exh. cat. (Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum, 1950), 33, fig. 54, (repro.).

“Recent Accession,” in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts Gallery News 21, no. 2 (November 1953).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 223, (repro.).

Art Institute of Chicago and William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Master Bronzes of India, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), unpaginated, (repro.).

Pratapaditya Pal, “The Rich Variety of the Indian Bronze,” in Apollo, 97 (March 1973): 74, fig. 1, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, Art of the Orient, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 118, (repro.).

Prithvi K. Agrawala, Early Indian Bronzes (Nagwa, Varanasi, India: Prithivi Prakashan, 1977), 65-66, ill. 137, 144, (repro.).

Stanislaw J. Czuma, and Rekha Morris, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, exh. cat. (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art/Indiana University Press, 1985), 104, (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), 376, (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), 258, fig. 3, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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