Casket
second half of 19th century
Description
The casket consists of a rectangular box with a detachable lid and inner drawers. The box is supported on four feet of five-clawed animal paws. The exterior panels are luxuriously and intricately carved with images of human figures and animals set against a profuse background of leaves and flowers in lower relief. On the raised central section of the lid is a tripartite arcade of cusped arches. Beneath the central arch a four-armed Hindu deity is seated on a throne. This is Vishnu, to judge by the U-shaped tilak on his forehead and the minute attributes in his back hands (probably the characteristic conch and mace). His forward hands are posed in a ritual gesture, presumably Abhaya mudra, connoting protection and a state of fearlessness. He is flanked by the goddesses Lakshmi and Bhudevi, attendants, and prancing yalis (lions with horns and wings). The women wear tiered and bejeweled headdresses in the style of Tamil Nadu. The side panels of the casket are also richly and intricately carved with figural, animal, and foliate motifs, that create tableaux of minor deities seated about small platforms, and flanked by squirrels, birds, and auspicious mythical creatures that are probably kinnaras (half-man/half-horse) and yalis. The interior of the box is divided into five lidded compartments, each mounted with spherical ivory pulls. The five lids are each carved in shallow relief with floral designs. The ivory pulls are surrounded by stylized lotus motifs. The lid is not hinged to the casket, but designed to fit securely onto the raised lip that runs around the box. The inner face of the lid is carved at center with a lotus set within concentric circles. Floral sprays decorate the corners. I sent images of the casket to Karina Corrigan, Associate Curator in the Peabody Essex Museum, who has catalogued the extensive collections of carved sandalwood in the V&A and the Peabody Essex Museum. In her opinion, this may have been a box for jewelry or sewing instruments. She offered the further observation that the "tables" depicted on the side panels may represent "altars of some kind with canopies over them. This casket reflects the mid to late 19th century moment when the decorative vocabulary of south Indian sandalwood traditions merged with western European forms. By the 20th century, the popularity of these objects began to wane and many examples entered the market.
Dimensions
H. 15.6 x W. 29.3 x D. 20.5 cm (6 1/8 x 11 9/16 x 8 1/16 in.)
Provenance
[Art of the Past, Subhash Kapoor, New York City (by 2009)] sold; to Robert Walzer, Rubin Ladd Foundation, West Redding CT, (2009), gift; to the Harvard Art Museum, 2009. Note: According to the donor, Robert Walzer: The casket was purchased from the dealer Subhash Kapoor, in his gallery, Art of the Past, on Madison Avenue, New York City. It was one of several carved sandalwood objects that he purchased at the same time. Two of the objects from the group (a box and an incomplete book cover) were subsequently donated to LACMA. Subhash Kapoor reported at the time that he had acquired them at a antiques street fair in London a few years earlier. The London seller stated that he had bought the box from a person who came to him to sell it, and the dealer assumed it was an estate piece.
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