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.
N. Tangavelou Pillai, Pondicherry, India, by 1922 [1];
Purchased from Tangavelou Pillai by C. T. Loo & Cie, Paris, 1922-1933;
Purchased from C. T. Loo by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.
NOTES:
[1] This room is an assemblage of elements sourced by C. T. Loo to create several Indian-style interiors. Most of the room’s carvings likely come from several distinct temple carts. The wood paneling and lower sections of columns are examples of modern carving and appear to be made from European wood that matches the Indian wood elements. The sources of other parts of the room are unknown. A shipping invoice dated February 28, 1933 for a shipment of 26 cases of “antique wooden pannels [sic] Gallery” from Loo’s Paris office to the Nelson-Atkins describes the panels’ provenance as “Bought from N. B. Tangavelou, Lakme Shop, Rue Dupleix, Pondichery in 1922.” See Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG80-05 William Rockhill Nelson Trust Records, Series III, box 9, folder 39. It is therefore likely that at least some of the room’s elements were acquired by Loo from N. Tangavelou Pillai. It is unclear if Tangavelou Pillai had business connections with Loo in 1922, but he is known to have acquired objects for Loo while acting as an agent for archaeologist Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil from 1924. With thanks to Srishti Sankaranarayanan, PhD candidate, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, for sharing her research on South Indian temple carts with the Nelson-Atkins.
This room was originally designed for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) by Loo and Benjamin March, then Curator of Oriental Art at DIA, in 1931. Due to financial constraints resulting from the Great Depression, DIA was unable to complete the purchase of the room and the Nelson-Atkins bought it in January 1933. During its shipment from France, it sailed from Le Havre to New Orleans on the SS Duquesne, and was subsequently shipped up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Rock Island, IL, where it was transferred to a truck, arriving in Kansas City on April 28, 1933. Copies of shipping records and correspondence are in the Nelson-Atkins Archives and curatorial files.
“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.).
