Unknown Artist
- Title
- A winged deity
- Other titles:
- Standing male figure
- Place of origin
-
Chandraketugarh →
West Bengal →
India
- Period
- Shunga Period circa 200 - 50 BCE → India
- Year
- 2nd century BCE-1st century BCE
- Media category
- Sculpture
- Materials used
- moulded terracotta plaque with applied surface decoration
- Dimensions
-
28.0 x 14.0cm
- Signature & date
- Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1994
- Accession number
- 590.1994
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
This plaque depicting a standing male figure is possibly a representation of a winged deity, perhaps a gandharva, associated with fertility, marriage and the protection of virgins. He is depicted as an upright figure with a round face, wide eyes and full lips. He wears a distinctive and heavy turban, large wheel-like earrings, bangles on his proper right arm and an elaborately woven lower garment belted with a sash. The sophisticated dress of this richly dressed figure reflects the burgeoning wealth of a very early urban and middle-class society who now had money to spend on art objects and architectural decoration. It would seem that such plaques were made to be hung on a wall, perhaps in a temple.
Asian Art Department, AGNSW, March 1995
- Bibliography (2)
-
'Sensuous Spirituality: Hindu and Buddhist Art from the Indic Cultural Realm' by Pratapaditya Pal, pg. 80-87., Orientations Sep 2000, Sep 2000, 84 (colour illus.). fig.8
Pratapaditya Pal (Bangladesh; United States of America, b.1935) (Author), Indian sculpture: a catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection, Los Angeles, 1986. General reference - comparable examples
