Shiva and Parvati on the Bull Nandi
- 227
Masterpieces of Asian Art in American Collections, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, January 5-February 14, 1960, no. 22 as Siva and Parvati on the Bull, Nandi, with Dancing Attendants.
The Art of India: Stone Sculpture, Asia House Gallery, New York, (Dates), 1962, no. 43 as Relief with Male and Female Attendants.
Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India: A.D. 700-1200, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, March 31-August 15, 1993; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, October 10-November 28, 1993, no. 48 as Uma-Mahesvara with Musicians and Dancers.
Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, June 12-August 24, 1997, no.12 as Shiva and Parvati Being Entertained.
This finely-carved relief was once part of a long frieze that decorated the famous Shiva Temple at Harshagiri in Rajasthan. In the center, the Hindu god Shiva and his wife, the goddess Parvati, sit upon Shiva’s Mount Nandi, surrounded by dancers and musicians. This dynamic scene may be a depiction of the divine couple’s wedding procession.
An inscription at the site describes the beauty of the Harshagiri Temple, stating that the architect “built this delightful house of Shankara (Shiva) with its chapels, the beautiful porch containing all the gods, like a portion of heaven made by the creator himself.”
With Imre Schwaiger (1868–1940), Delhi, India, by 1935 [1];
Purchased from Schwaiger, through Laurence Sickman, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1935.
NOTES:
[1] Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG01/01 Director's Office Records, Paul Gardner, box 4, folder 41, 1935 Sickman purchases en route. Before Laurence Sickman assumed his role as Curator of Asian Art in June 1935, he traveled through South Asia and the Middle East on his way from China to the U.S. This is one of several objects he purchased in Delhi from Hungarian-born dealer Schwaiger during this trip.
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), 142, fig. 6, (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), 185, (repro.).
R. C. Agrawala, “II. Medieval Sculpture: 14. Sika,” Marg 12, no. 2 (March 1959): 69-71, fig. 1, (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), 229, (repro.).
The Asia Society, Masterpieces of Asian Art in American Collections, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society, Inc., 1960), unpaginated.
Asia House Gallery, The Art of India: Stone Sculpture, exh. cat. (New York: Asia Society, Inc., 1962), 64.
Umakant P. Shah, “Some Mediaeval Sculptures from Gujarat and Rajasthan,” in “Western Indian Art Special Number,” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art (1965/66):78, pl. 39, fig. 24, (repro.).
Martin Lerner, “Some Unpublished Sculpture from Harshagiri,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56 (December 1969): 357-58, fig. 4, (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, “Stone Sculpture of India and South-East Asia,” Apollo, 97 (March 1973): 87, fig. 9, (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), 125, (repro.).
Calambur Sivaramamurti, The Art of India (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977), 231, 356, fig. 348, (repro.).
Darielle Mason, “New Perspectives on the Temple Sculptures of Northern India,” in Orientations 24, no. 7 (July 1993): 42, fig. 16, (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), 381, (repro.).
Vishakha N. Desai and Darielle Mason, Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India: A.D. 700-1200, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries in association with Mapin Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, 1993), 219-220, (repro.).
Jim Masselos, et al. Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art, exh. cat. (Sydney, Australia: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1997), 156-5756, 59, fig. 12, (repro.).
Richard Anderson, Calliope’s Sisters: A Comparative Study of Philosophies of Art 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004), 205, fig. 8-5, (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), 266, fig. 30, (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), 54-57, (repro.).
