Indra's Visit to the Buddha Meditating in a Cave
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1994-1997.
Three ascetics and a princely devotee inhabit a rugged landscape in this relief fragment of Indra’s visit to the Buddha from a Buddhist reliquary mound, or stupa. The top figures turn in adoration towards what would have been a central image of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, meditating in a mountaintop cave. Below them, two male ascetics converse.
The naturalistic style of the Gandharan artists is especially evident in the muscular torso of the figure in the lower left, revealing a direct connection to Greek and Roman art. Even more impressive is the psychological intensity inherent in this sculpture, as each figure conveys a palpable sense of engagement with each other and with the central image.
Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, New York;
With John Eskenazi Ltd., London, by 1999;
Purchased from John Eskenazi Ltd. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1999.
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).
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), 26, 30-31, (repro.).
