A NEAR LIFESIZE UPPER PART OF A CHOLA FIGURE OF VISHNU

A NEAR LIFESIZE UPPER PART OF A CHOLA FIGURE OF VISHNU, TAMIL NADU, SOUTH INDIA, 12TH/13TH CENTURY

carved granite, the four-armed deity with upper hands holding cakra and sankha, his lower left originally resting on his gada (now missing), wearing tall tapering cylindrical headdress with bud finial, mounted

101.6cm high

Provenance: Private collection, UK. Acquired Sotheby's New York, 19 March 2008, lot 279. The Sotheby's catalogue states that the consignor acquired this piece at Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, in June 1965.

For a closely related, but smaller scale, full figure of Vishnu in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, see Pratapaditya Pal, 'Asian Art at the Norton Simon Museum, Volume 1: Art from the Indian Subcontinent', New Haven 2003, no.166D, p.219. Also in the Norton Simon Museum is a similarly styled figure, (F.1975.16.4.)