Chandikeshvara, a Hindu Saint
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Exposition de Sculptures et Bronzes Ancien de L'Inde, C. T. Loo & Company, Paris, June 14-July 31, 1935, no. 33 as Apparsvamigal (?).
The Art of India, Farnsworth Art Museum, Wellesley College, MA, under the auspices of the Mayling Soong Foundation, April 18-May 15, 1953, no. 24 as Saivite Saint.
Bronzes of India and Greater India, The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, November 2-30, 1955, no. 20 as Chandikesvara.
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. 32 as Young Shaivite Saint (Chandikeshvara, identified by his ax and the garland of flowers lightly pressed between his hands).
Manifestations of Shiva, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 29-June 7, 1981; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, August 1-September 27, 1981; Seattle Art Museum, November 25, 1981-January 31, 1982; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 23-May 30, 1982, no. 123 as Candesvara.
The Cosmic Dancer: Shiva Nataraja, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, March 11-June 28, 1992; Honolulu Academy of Arts, September 16-October 25, 1992; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, February 7-April 11, 1993, no cat.
The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D. C., November 10, 2002-March 9, 2003; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, April 4-June 15, 2003; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, July 6-September 14, 2003, no. 34 as Saint Chandesha.
Shiva Nataraja: Der komische Tanzer, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Switzerland, November 16, 2008-March 1, 2009, no. 51 as Der Heilige Chandesha.
As a boy, Chandikeshvara was a devout worshiper of Shiva. He created icons for worshiping Shiva in the sand and anointed them with milk. His father, angry at this waste of milk, kicked at an icon. The boy was so disturbed by this act of disrespect to the god that he grabbed his father’s stick, which miraculously turned into Shiva’s ax, and cut off the offending foot. Shiva was so pleased with Chandikeshvara’s devotion that he replaced his father’s foot and appointed the youth to serve as the guardian of his household.
Sculptures of the ax-wielding Chandikeshvara can still be found protecting the doorways of Hindu temples today.
With C. T. Loo & Co., Paris and New York, no. J-212, by June 14, 1935-1950 [1];
Purchased from C. T. Loo, Inc. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1950.
NOTES:
[1] This object was included in C. T. Loo’s 1935 catalogue Exposition de Sculptures et Bronzes Ancien de l’Inde. It was transferred from Paris to Loo's New York branch by December 1946. C. T. Loo/Frank Caro archive, Musée Guimet, Paris, copy of stock card in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. C. T. Loo & Co. was incorporated as C. T. Loo, Inc. in 1949.
Vincent A. Smith and William Hoey, “Ancient Buddhist Statuettes and a Candella Copper-Plate from the Banda District,” in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 64 no. 1 (1895): 159-62, pl. 8, pl. 9, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 184, (repro.).
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), 34, plate 56 (repro.).
Fogg Art Museum, Helleninstic Art in Asia: A Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (Cambridge: Fogg Art Museum, 1955), unpaginated.
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), 225, (repro.).
Benjamin Rowland, The Evolution of the Buddha Image, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1963), 53,131, (repro.).
Art Institute of Chicago and William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mart Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Master Bronzes of India, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), unpaginated, (repro.).
M. Fairbanks Marcus, “Master Bronzes of India: The Expanding Horizon of Indian Bronzes,” Oriental Art, New Series v. 12, no. 1 (Spring 1966), 88, fig. 2, (repro.).
Pratapaditya Pal, “The Rich Variety of the Indian Bronze,” in Apollo, 97 (March 1973): 75, fig. 3 (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), 121, (repro.).
Pratapaditya Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1975), 192-93, (repro.).
Pratapaditya Pal, The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence (New York: The Asia Society, Inc., 1978), 61, (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), 210-11, (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), 378, (repro.).
Sheila E. Hoey Middleton, “The Third Buddha,” in South Asian Studies 18 (2002):
Chelsea Schlievert and Jason Steuber, “Collecting Asian Art, Defining Gender Roles: World War II, woman curators, and the politics of Asian art collections in the United States,” in Journal of the History of Collections 29, no. 2 (2008): 296, fig. 4, (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), 259, fig. 6, (repro.).
Sheila E. Hoey Middleton, “The Quest for the ‘Third Buddha’: A Sequel,” in South Asian Studies 26,no. 2 (September 2010): 119-21, fig. 3, (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), 9, fig. 2, 34-37, (repro.).
