A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s5.t2: B. Bronzes and Brasses
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s5.t2
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B. Bronzes and Brasses
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The bronzes and brasses of Southern India, although not equal in value or interest to the large finds recently made in Ceylon, and probably of Indian origin, are yet sufficiently numerous and important to deserve brief separate examination and illustration.² The better specimens seem to range in date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. No good modern metal work in either Southern India or Ceylon has come to my notice.
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² At the Indian Section of the Festival of Empire (1911) Lord Ampthill exhibited several fine large bronzes, including a Dancing Siva, from the Tinnevelly District, Madras, which are almost identical with the Polonnāruwa specimens.
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PLATE XLVIII. Brass portrait images of Krishnarāya of Vijayanagar (A.D. 1510–29) and his Queens; in the Śrī Nivāsa Perumal temple on the hill of Tirumalai near Tirupati, N. Arcot District. (Photo. No. 570, *Progr. Rep. A. S. Madras and Coorg*, 1903–4.)
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Exceptional interest attaches to the brass images reproduced in Plate XLVIII, which are certified by inscriptions on the shoulders to be portraits, apparently contemporary, of Krishnarāya, the famous king of Vijayanagar in the early years of the sixteenth century, and two of his queens. They stand inside a temple on the sacred hill of Tirumalai or Upper Tirupati, and were photographed by a high-caste Hindu, no European or Musalman being permitted to enter any temple on the hill. The town of Tirupati is famous for the skill of its workers in brass.¹ The images, although
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¹ *Imp. Gaz.*, s.v. Tirumala; *Annual Report, A. S., India*, 1902–3, p. 227; citing Hultzsch (*Progr. Report*, 1903, in *Madras G. O. Public*, Nos. 655, 656, dated July 24, 1903). Dr. Hultzsch's recommendation to have the images photographed by a high-caste Hindu was carried out by the Survey in the following year, but no description of the statues was recorded. They are called 'statues', and presumably are life-size.
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FIG. 174. Siva Naṭarāja; from Tanjore District, preserved in local treasury.) (Photo. 1555, A. S.)
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formal in design and defective in expression, seem to be executed with great delicacy. Well-authenticated portrait statues are rare in India. Mr. Walhouse mentions the existence of a life-size brass image of the Jain Tīrthankara Sāntīsvara, 'erect and enshrined in burnished silver and brass work variegated with red ornaments', just outside the colossus enclosure at Yēnūr in South Kanara.²
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² *Ind. Ant.*, v. 38.
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The Tanjore Dancing Siva is considered by the Superintendent of the Central Museum, Madras, to be quite equal in artistic merit to the museum specimen previously published by Dr. Coomaraswamy and Mr. Havell. It differs in various details from the other examples of the type, and especially in the absence of the long braids of hair whirling in the dance. The explanation of the symbolism and criticism of the artistic qualities of the various representations of the dancing god will be more conveniently deferred until we discuss the Ceylonese examples. This Tanjore image (Fig. 174), although described as 'copper', probably is bronze. Its age is uncertain.
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The image of Pārvatī, from a private collection, represented in Fig. 175, is not very dissimilar in style from the Polonnāruwa bronzes (*post*, Sec. 7 B of this chapter),
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FIG. 175. Pārvatī; property of W. A. Beardsell, Esq., Madras; about 20 inches high. (Photo. from Central Museum, Madras.)
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FIG. 176. Bronze statuette, 11½″ high, of Rāmachandra bearded: No. 43–'87, Ind. Sec., V. and A. Museum.
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and may, perhaps, date from about the same period, the twelfth century. It is well modelled, and the hands, as usual, are specially good.
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The South Kensington statuette of Rāmachandra (Fig. 176) is a good example of the better class bronzes of later date, perhaps eighteenth-century work.
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The smaller image of the four-armed Siva Vīrabhadra, six or seven inches high, excluding the pedestal, clad in armour and equipped with weapons, in Case 20 of Room IV, British Museum, belongs to the same class.
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A noticeable item in the Payne Knight collection in the British Museum (Room IV, Case 11) is a circular bronze about 7 inches high, looking like the plinth of a *stūpa*, with vigorous relief figures of Krishna and other deities, besides wellexecuted decorative motives. Notwithstanding its apparently Buddhist form, it does not appear to be early work, and must have been intended for use in Brahmanical worship.
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The South Kensington casting of the plunging horse and other sculptures on the famous 'choultry' at Madura (Fig. 177), already mentioned (*ante*, p. 234), is of
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FIG. 177. Bronze cast; copy of sculpture on Choultry of Tirumal Nāik (17th cent.), at Madura; the casting may be of 18th cent.: No. 639-’75, Ind. Sec., V. and A. Museum.
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interest as being both a fine piece of work in bronze, and also a miniature reproduction of a characteristic type of South Indian sculpture in stone. More or less similar horses are to be seen on many of the great temples, and although never anatomically correct, are designed with such spirit and vigour that they are often impressive and effective. In this case European influence may be suspected; the rider looks like a Western knight.