EASTERN INDIA, ORISSA, 18TH CENTURY

In style and casting technique, the present figure is typical of eighteenth-century brass sculpture from Orissa, in eastern India: the round face is set with wide, almond-shaped eyes, prominent nose, and full lips, and the heavy, solid-cast body displays a powerful physique, with all bodily adornments lotiform in design. The present figure stands out, however, for the unusual presence of the diyya (lamp) held before her waist. The bowl of the lamp would have likely been filled with oil, and a wick could be run through the hollow cylinder held in her right hand, transforming the sculpture into a working oil lamp. Such figural lamps are also known from contemporaneous South India, where they are described as portrait or donor lamps; the donor of the lamp would essentially be worshipping within the temple confines whenever the lamp was lit. It is possible the present figural lamp represents a similar concept. The current figure is also distinguished by the unusual elephant-form base, and the small birds that rest on both the lamp and on the figure’s left shoulder. Compare the present work with a brass figure of Radha, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 21 March 2019, lot 917; while that example predates the present work by a few centuries, they both share the same robust physique and expressive facial features that are characteristic for Orissan sculpture, and demonstrates the continuity of style over a long period. See, also, a smaller brass figure of a devi, dated to the seventeenth century or later, from the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, sold at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2019, lot 1105.