Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a Hindu Saint

CultureIndian

Date11th century

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 19 5/8 × 8 7/8 × 5 1/2 inches (49.85 × 22.54 × 13.97 cm)
Part (figure): 12 5/8 × 8 7/8 × 5 1/2 inches (32.07 × 22.54 × 13.97 cm)
Part (base): 7 × 7 × 3 11/16 inches (17.78 × 17.78 × 9.37 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-533

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Master Bronzes Selected from Museums and Collections in America, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, January 31-February 28, 1937, no. 106 as Kali, holding cymbals.

East Indian Sculpture, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, January 7-28, 1940, no. 19 as Seated Figure of the Goddess Devi or Kali the Ogress.

Art of Greater India, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, March 1-April 16, 1950, no. 67 as Kali.

Hindu Sculpture, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota, January 25-March 2, 1952, no cat.

The Art of India, Farnsworth Art Museum, Wellesley College, MA, under the auspices of the Mayling Soong Foundation, April 18-May 15, 1953, no. 27 as Kali, Goddess of Death.

Bronzes of India and Greater India, The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, November 2-30, 1955, no. 39 as Kali.

Art in Asia and the West, San Francisco Museum of Art, October 28-December 1, 1957, no. 41.

Master Bronzes of India, The Art Institute of Chicago, September 3-October 10, 1965; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, October 21-November 30, 1965; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January 18-February 27, 1966; Asia House Gallery, New York, October 12-December 11, 1966, no. 47 as A Female Shaivite Saint (Karaikkala-Ammaiya).

The Sculpture of India, 3000 B.C. to 1300 A.D., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 5-September 2, 1985; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 9-December 1, 1985, no. 99 as The Saiva Saint Known as the Mother of Karikal (Karaikkal Ammaiyar).

The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D. C., November 10, 2002-March 9, 2003; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, April 4-June 15, 2003; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, July 6-September 14, 2003, no. 35 as Saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Mother of Karaikkal.

Shiva Nataraja: Der komische Tanzer, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Switzerland, November 16, 2008-March 1, 2009, no. 49 as Die Heilige Mutter von Karaikkal (Holy Mother of Karaikkal).

Gallery Label

Karaikkal Ammaiyar, the "Mother of Karaikkal," was once a real woman (6th century c.e.). She was the first of the great saints from South India dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. As a beautiful and pious bride, she daily filled the rice bowls of the Hindu ascetics who knocked at her gate. She gave one of them (Shiva in disguise) a mango intended for her husband. When it was time to feed her husband, she prayed to Shiva, and another mango appeared miraculously in her hand. Eventually rejected by her husband, she left her home to become an ascetic. For her devotion, Shiva granted her a special boon—she would forever have the vision of him dancing before her. From then on she wrote songs and poems in praise of Shiva and meditated on his image. In her poetry, she described one of Shiva’s skeletal companions, alluding to her own very thin, ascetic’s body.

Provenance

With Paul Mallon, Paris, by 1933;

Purchased from Mallon by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1935.

Published References

Ananda Coomaraswamy, "Indian Bronzes," in Parnassus, 9, no. 1 (January 1937), 22, (repro.).

Arthur Upham Pope, Master Bronzes Selected from Museums and Collections in America, exh. cat. (Buffalo, New York: Albright Art Gallery, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 1937), unpaginated, pl. 106, (repro.).

Sheldon Cheney, A World History of Art (New York: The Viking Press, 1937), 305, 307, (repro.).

The Toledo Museum of Art, East Indian Sculpture from Various American Collections; a Selection of Sculptural Works by Unknown but Outstanding East Indian Sculptors, exh. cat. (Toledo, Ohio: The Toledo Museum of Art, 1940), unpaginated, (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), 144, fig. 9, (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), 187, (repro.).

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art of Greater India: 3000 B.C.-2800 A.D., edited by Henry Trubner, exh. cat. (Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum, 1950), 38-39, plate 67, (repro.).

"Hindu Sculpture," in The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, 41, no. 8 (February 23, 1952): 38.

Stella Kramrisch, The Art of India: Traditions of Indian Sculpture Painting and Architecture. (New York: Phaidon Publishers, Inc., 1954), plate 150, (repro.).

Rhode Island School of Design. Bronzes of India and Greater India; an Exhibition Held the 2 till the 30 November, 1955 (Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1955), 12 (fig. 39), 19, (repro.).

San Francisco Museum of Art, Art in Asia and the West, exh. cat. (San Francisco, California: H. S. Crocker Co., Inc., 1957), 10, 30, (repro.).

"Tales of Ancient India," advertisement in Saturday Review (June 6, 1959): 4, (repro.).

Display ad 371 -- no title. (1959, Sep 13). New York Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/114662584?accountid=28457.

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), 234, (repro.).

Art Institute of Chicago; William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Master Bronzes of India, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), unpaginated, (repro.).

"Cimbalos y Platillos," MD en Espanol 11, no. 11 (November 1973), 196, (repro.).

Pratapaditya Pal, "The Rich Variety of the Indian Bronze," in Apollo, 97 (March 1973): 79, fig. 5, (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), 140, (repro.).

Benjamin Rowland, Art of India and Southeast Asia. (Winchester, MA: University Prints, 1980), O68, (repro.).

Pramod Chandra, The Sculpture of India, 3000 B.C. to 1300 A.D., exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 204-05, (repro.).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), no. 123, pp. 212, 214, 216, (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). 387, color plate 76, (repro.).

Sherman E. Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art, 5th ed., ed. Naomi Noble Richard. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), colorplate 17, (repro.).

George Michel, The New Cambridge History of India I: 6 Architecture and Art of Southern India. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 205, fig. 149, (repro.).

Vidya Dehejia, The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India (New York: American Federation of Arts in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2002), 166-67, (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), 267, fig. 33, (repro.).

Johannes Beltz, and Saskia Cornelia Kersenboom. Shiva Nataraja: der Kosmische Tänzer, exh. cat. (Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 2008), 153, (repro.).

Elaine Craddock, Siva's Demon Devotee: Karaikkal Ammaiyar (New York: State University of New York Press, 2010), (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), 64-65, (repro.).

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