Shiva Nataraja, The Lord of Dance

CultureIndian

Dateearly 13th century

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 34 1/4 × 27 1/2 × 13 inches (87 × 69.85 × 33.02 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number34-7

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Tempus Fugit: Time Flies, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 15-December 31, 2000, no. II.14 as Siva Nataraja.

Gallery Label

The Hindu god Shiva raises his left leg in an eternal dance to create, maintain, and destroy the universe. His upper-right hand holds the drum that beats the rhythm to his step. Balancing on his right foot, Shiva tramples Apasmarapurusha, the demon of ignorance. Unlike in the museum, in a South Indian temple, this sculpture was adorned daily with offerings of cloths, flowers, and oils. During festival processions, worshippers could see the sculpture of Shiva from all angles outside of its temple. Circle around the sculpture and notice how Shiva’s limbs shift and balance relative to your own posture.

Provenance

With C. T. Loo & Co., Paris, no. J104, by 1931-1934 [1];

Purchased from C. T. Loo & Co. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1934.

NOTES:

[1] This object was lent by Loo to the I'Inde française section of the 1931 Exposition coloniale internationale in Paris. In December 1933, it was one of a large group of objects Loo lent to the Nelson-Atkins' opening exhibition and was acquired by the museum after the close of that exhibition. Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG80-05 William Rockhill Nelson Trust Records, box 9, folder 39.

Published References

L'Inde française: Exposition coloniale internationale (Paris, 1931), 23-4, (repro.).

“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 66, (repro.).

Sheldon Cheney, A World History of Art. (New York: The Viking Press, 1937), 313, (repro.).

Emory S. Bogardus and Robert H. Lewis, Social Life and Personality (New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938), 444, (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, 145, fig. 8, fig. 10, (repro.).

Thomas Walter Wallbank and Alastair Mulligan Taylor, Civilization Past and Present, vol. 1 (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1942), xvi, 274, (repro.).

Kathryn Dean Lee and Katharine Tyler Burchwood, Art Then and Now (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1949), 68, (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, 188, (repro.).

Baldwin H. Ward, ed., Pictorial History of the World (Wilton, CT: Year Pictorial Publications, 1956), 179, (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), 235, (repro.).

Lefton S. Stavrianos, et al., A Global History of Man (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1962), 108, (repro.).

Woodbridge Bingham, Hilary Conroy and Frank W. Ikle A History of Asia: Formation of Civilizations, from Antiquity to 1600 (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1964), 206, fig. 11.4, (repro.).

Pratapaditya Pal, “The Rich Variety of the Indian Bronze,” in Apollo, 97 (March 1973): 80, fig. 13, (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), 139, (repro.).

"A Dancing God,” in The CRES Release. (August 1988), 1-3, (repro.).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 212, 214-215, (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), 386, (repro.).

Jed Jackson, Art: A Comparative Study. (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1994), 112, 113, fig. 78, (repro.).

Jan Schall, Tempus Fugit: Time Flies, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2000), 275-281, plate II.14, (repro.).

Richard Anderson, Calliope’s Sisters: A Comparative Study of Philosophies of Art 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004), 191-92, fig. 8-1, (repro.).

Janet Marquardt and Stephen Eskilson, Frames of Reference: Art, History, and the World. (London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., 2005), 39, (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), 271, fig. 42, (repro.).

Kimberly Masteller, “The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in the U.S.,” in Orientations (Chinese) 11:2 (2014), 106-111, (repro.).

Julian Zugazagoitia, “Art Insider: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” in The Independent (May 30, 2015), 9, (repro.).

Kimberly Masteller, “Arthur Upham Pope and Collecting Persian Art for Kansa City,” in Arthur Upham Pope and A New Survey of Persian Art (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2016), fig. 10.1, (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), 18, fig. 12, 66-67, (repro.).

Yuka Kadoi, ed., Arthur Upham Pope and a New Survey of Persian Art, vol. 10, Studies in Persian Cultural History (Leiden: Brill, 2016), (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.