Cosmetic Tray with “The Death of Adonis"
Hellenistic Art in Asia, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 28, 1954-February 15, 1955, no. 28 as Patera with Representation of Erotic Scene: Rosette Design on Reverse.
East-West in Art: Patterns of Cultural and Aesthetic Relationships, Indiana University, Bloomington, June 21-October 9, 1966, no. 96 as Patera: Jupiter and Ganymede (?).
Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, Cleveland Museum of Art, November 13, 1985-January 5, 1986; Asia Society, New York, February 13-April 6, 1986; Seattle Art Museum, May 8-July 13, 1986, no. 67 as Palette with The Death of Adonis.
At first glance, one might assume that this small stone tray depicting the death of Adonis came from an ancient Greek site. In fact, this assumption is correct. The city of Taxila in Pakistan was a part of the Greco-Bactrian Empire and was ruled by a Greek king during the 2nd century B.C.E.
In this relief carving, three satyrs mourn the youthful Adonis, who reclines upon the boar that has slain him. The naturalistic rendering of these figures and their mythological subject matter points to Mediterranean sources. Numerous examples of these trays have been discovered in the ruins of domestic architecture in Taxila. Although traditionally identified as a “cosmetic tray,” the elaborate carving leaves little room for mixing make up. Recently, scholars have suggested these trays may have had a ritual function instead.
Harold Arthur Deane (1854-1908), England and India, by 1908 [1];
By inheritance to his wife, Mary Gertrude Deane (nee Roberts, 1857-1913), England and India, 1908-1913;
By descent to Henry Harold Rookhurst Deane (1889-1960), England, 1913-by 1949;
With Mathias Komor, New York, by 1949;
Purchased from Komor by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1949.
NOTES:
[1] Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Harold Arthur Deane KCSI was an administrator in British India who rose to the office of Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province. While serving in India, Deane accumulated a collection of Gandharan and ancient Buddhist and Hindu artifacts.
Fogg Art Museum, Hellenistic Art in Asia: a Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (Cambridge: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1955), unpaginated.
Theodore Bowie, et al., East-West in Art: Patterns of Cultural and Aesthetic Relationships, exh. cat. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), 74, fig. 96, (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), 128, (repro.).
Henri-Paul Francfort, Les Palettes du Gandhara, vol. 23 Memoires de la Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Afghanistan (Diffusion de Boccard: Paris, 1979), 23-24.
Saryu Doshi, ed., India and Greece: Connections and Parallels (Bombay, Marg Publications, 1985), 51, (repro.).
Stanislaw Czuma and Rekha Morris, “Kusana Sculpture: Images from Early India,” in Orientations 16, no. 11 (November 1985): 33-34, (repro.).
Stanislaw Czuma and Rekha Morris, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, exh. cat. (Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1985), 149, (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), 374, (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), 256, fig. 1, (repro.).
