A bronze figure of Uma, South India, Chola period, circa 11th century | 南印度 朱羅王朝約十一世紀 銅烏瑪立像

Property from a French Private Collection
A bronze figure of Uma
South India, Chola period, circa 11th century

the base inscribed Tiru a Umaponil ("Fortunate Uma receptacle of the soul")
Height 66 cm, 26 in.
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Collection particulière française
Statue en bronze représentant Uma, Inde du Sud, époque Chola, circa XIe siècle
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法國私人收藏
南印度 朱羅王朝約十一世紀 銅烏瑪立像

Condition Report:
The figure is extremely elegant and a classical Chola sculpture.
The left hand has broken off and been replaced from the wrist with a break showing at the wrist and an old repatination going up the arm to match the restored area. There is some reworking on the facial features including to the lips, eyes and nose which is not an uncommon practice for south Indian bronzes.

Catalogue Note:
Uma Parameshvari, the Great Goddess Uma, consort of Lord Shiva, wearing a diaphanous dhoti and a sash around the hips, naked above the waist with a sacred cord, upavita, draped over the left shoulder and between her breasts, and hair arranged in a tall karandamukuta with tresses falling to her shoulders, standing on a lotus pedestal in subtle tribhanga with hips swaying gently to her right, her left leg bent slightly at the knee, with the right hand raised in katakahasta mudra and the left hanging languorously at her side in lola mudra, with a pedestal fitted with rings at each corner to facilitate transport of the image in procession.

The goddess is invariably portrayed by south Indian Chola period artists as a young woman of great beauty, the ideal wife of Shiva and mother of their sons Skanda and Ganesha, cf. the svelte form of the goddess seated in a late tenth or early eleventh century Somaskanda group from Tanjavur-Pudukottai region, Tamilnadu, see John Guy, Indian Temple Sculpture, London, 2007, p. 99, pl. 106.

Provenance:
A private English collection, from the 1970s.

Collection Josette Schulmann, Paris.

Christie's Paris, 11th June 2008, lot 202.

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法國私人收藏，得於1970年代

Josette Schulmann女士收藏，巴黎

巴黎佳士得，2008年6月11日，編號202