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January 28, 2002
PURCHASE OF THREE WORKS OF ART FROM INDIA
CONTINUES CELEBRATION OF BOOK AND EXHIBITION
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 Folio 9 of a manuscript of the Kalpasutra (Scripture of Right Conduct), dated A.D. 1416 (V.S. 1473); India, Gujarat, Anhillapattana; opaque watercolor on paper; 3-1/2" by 11-1/4" (Photo by Katherine Wetzel, &$169; 2001 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) |
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts board of trustees has approved the acquisition of three remarkably different works of art from India – a rare Jain Kalpasutra manuscript, an 18th-century ivory-clad drop-front diminutive secretary made for the American market, and a contemporary sculpture by Ravinder Reddy, one of India’s leading artists. |
The emphasis by the trustees on Indian art is in celebration of the recent publication of The Arts of India by the museum’s curatorial chairman, Dr. Joseph M. Dye III, and the recent exhibition Worlds of Wonder and Desire: Indian Paintings from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. “Now more than ever, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is committed to sharing the most valued artistic creations from cultures across time and across geographical and political borders,” says Dr. Michael Brand, the museum’s director.
“Our emphasis on India this fall and winter focuses our attention on a culture that has given much to the rest of the world, including the elemental roots of many of our languages and a historic reverence and exuberance in its creative energy that continues into the present day.”
The Kalpasutra manuscript, known as The Scripture of Right Conduct, is one of the most revered text of the Jain religion. Created in about 1416 in India’s Gujarat region, its three parts trace the lives of the 24 Jain saviors, the succession of the pontiffs of the Jain community and a series of rules for monks. The 37 illustrations on 34 folios are in opaque watercolor and ink on paper. The folios measure 3½ by 11¼ inches each.
The text is attributed to Acarya Bhadrabahu, who lived in the 4th century B.C.
The museum’s 15th-century copy “is a manuscript of great rarity and historical importance,” says Dye, who is also the museum’s E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art. It is one of the oldest known surviving “Kalpasutra” manuscripts on paper. Dye also calls it “a work of the very highest aesthetic quality – its colors are joyous, its lines are taut and fluid, and its compositions are both balanced and lively.”
The manuscript was purchased through the museum’s Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Fund. Pages from the manuscript will go on a view at a date yet to be determined.
The ivory-clad secretary is “an extraordinarily rare object with a provenance that goes back through six generations of the family for which it was made in about 1780,” says Dr. David Park Curry, curator of American arts at the museum.
 Diminutive ivory-clad drop-front secretary, ca. 1780; Vishakhaptnam (Vizagapatam), India, for the American market; sandalwood veneered with incised ivory panels filled with black lac; 53" by 29½" by 13½" (Photo by Katherine Wetzel, © 2001 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) |
The piece is well documented, down to
the name of the ship (The United States) on
which it was brought from India to America,
when it arrived in Philadelphia (Sept. 13,
1785), and how it descended over time
through the family of socialite Anne Willing
Bingham (1764-1801), who counted both George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson among her acquaintances.
In addition, “very few museums own examples of this type of furniture,” Curry says. The secretary stands 53 inches high by 29½ inches wide. It was made in Vishakhaptnam (Vizagapatam), India, of sandalwood veneered with incised ivory panels filled with black lac (a substance whose 18th-century recipe is unknown but which is made today by combining wax with black soot obtained from burning ivory scraps). In the 18th century, craftsmen from Vishakhaptnam devised a technique of pegging ivory sheets to wooden frames, primarily for the Western market. “Furniture from there offers an imaginative admixture of Indian materials and patterns drawn from chintz textiles, Western architectural prints and 18th-century English furniture forms,” Curry explains. An entire suite of 18th-century ivory furniture from Vishakhaptnam is held at Buckingham Palace in London. |
Curry calls the secretary a “powerful work of art” and “a fragile object of great luxury executed in the highest style of the day.”
The secretary was purchased through the museum’s Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund. It will be displayed in the museum’s American Galleries at a date to be determined. The Reddy sculpture, dated 1997, stands more than 6 feet tall and “is a startling work that commands attention,” says John Ravenal, the museum’s curator of Modern and Contemporary art.
Titled Krishnaveni I, it is made of painted and gilded polyester resin fiberglass.
 Krishnaveni I, 1997; Ravinder Reddy (India, b. 1956); painted and gilded polyester-resin fiberglass; ca. 75" by 72" by 73" (Photo by Katherine Wetzel, © 2001 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) |
Depicting a female head in a deeply modeled form with highly stylized
features, the sculpture bridges the everyday world and the fantastic. Layers of
burnished gold leaf cover her skin, while her brightly painted lips and brows
and the flowers braided into her hair reflect common Indian fashion and its
sources in Indian and Hollywood films.
The name Krishnaveni is a popular one for women in the artist’s home state of Andhra Pradesh. However, the figure might also be seen to refer to Radha, the legendary consort of the Hindu god Krishna. “She is at once regal and common, a mythical consort, a local teenager and a movie star,” Ravenal says. “This merging of reality and fantasy is characteristic of Reddy’s work, in which he transforms contemporary women into goddesses and goddesses into contemporary women.” |
Reddy was born in 1956 (interestingly, in the same town in which the ivory-clad secretary was made 225 years earlier). The sculpture was purchased with funds from the Kathleen Boone Samuels Fund and is on display now in the museum’s lobby.
The trustees also authorized the acquisition of:
- Still Life with Newspapers, a ca. 1850 painting in watercolor and ink on paper by John William Orr (American, born in Ireland, 1815-1887), purchased through the museum’s J. Harwood and Louise B. Cochrane Fund for American Art;
- and two pieces of English silver, a two-handled cup and cover(dated 1633) and a small two-handled cup (dated 1663), both with unidentified makers’ marks, given by Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Bayles of Charlottesville, Va.