Untitled

Unknown

18th century · Ivory · Asian Art

This panel depicting a temple dancer was one of a pair that decorated the doorjambs or entablature of the entrance to a Sri Lankan temple or monastery. With the decay of a building's foundation timbers, such panels became independent objects. This example is very likely the pair to a panel that has been in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, since 1879. Both depict a female dancer dressed in a finely fluted skirt, framed by fern-like tendrils and a diamond lozenge-pattern border. The figure is poised in a dance and hand pose (karana) prescribed in the Indian classical dance manual, the Natyshastra. Stylistic parallels with temple wood carving, such as that seen at Embekke Devale in Kandy district, point to an eighteenth-century date.

Artist

Unknown

Date

18th century

Medium

Ivory

Culture

Sri Lanka, Kandy region

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Purchase, Gift in memory of Else and Ernest Stadler from their children, 2019