Coffered Ceiling and Sculptured Frieze from the Porch of a Hindu Temple and Columns from a Temple Cart
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This room contains an assemblage of South Indian architectural elements that highlight the beauty of the region’s wood carving.
The ceiling and doors appear to have come from the same building, likely the hall or porch of a Hindu temple. The elaborately carved columns and the frieze of Hindu deities installed beneath the ceiling probably come from a large and ornate temple cart. It would have been used during processions to move portable icons like the bronze sculptures featured in this gallery.
These components were brought together to create this gallery when the museum opened in 1933. In their current form they create an interior reminiscent of South Indian temple architecture.
With C. T. Loo & Co., Paris and New York, by 1931-1933 [1];
Purchased from C. T. Loo by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.
[1] The Indian Temple Room was originally designed for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) by Loo and Benjamin March, then Curator of Oriental Art at DIA. Due to financial constraints resulting from the Great Depression, DIA was unable to complete the purchase of the room in 1931. The Nelson-Atkins subsequently purchased the room in January 1933. See Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 66, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 89, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 143, fig. 8, (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), 186, (repro.).
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), 230, (repro.).
Eloise Spaeth, American Art Museums and Galleries (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishing, 1960), 160.
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), 94-97, (repro.).
Kimberly Masteller, "Museums in Motion Today," Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, edited by Edward P. Alexander, Mary Alexander, and Juilee Decker, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Boulder, New York, and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 279, (repro.).
