Belgian Private Collection, 1965.

Christie’s New York, 16^th September 2014, lot 236.

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比利時私人收藏，1965年

紐約佳士得，2014年9月16日，編號236

The relief depicting Ganga to the right in pronounced tribhanga holding a kalasha in her left hand, standing on a lotus on the back of a makara, with two female attendants to her right, one with a bottle and the other holding the stem of a lotus leaf parasol protecting Ganga’s head, a male attendant to the left holding a lotus flower, a garland-bearing celestial couple in clouds above, a fragmentary naga deity above right, with a royal couple, perhaps Umamaheshvara, next to a cascading kalasha and flowing waters at the apex.

The goddess Ganga is the personification of the sacred River Ganges. Reliefs such as this are often placed at either side of the entrance to a Shaiva temple or sanctuary together with her counterpart Yamuna. Compare a similar pair of eighth or ninth century panels in Pratapaditya Pal, Indian Sculpture, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988, Vo. 2, pls. 45a-b, in which Dr. Pal likens the scene to a royal lady going to bathe, with her principal attendant — on whose shoulder the goddess rests her arm —carrying cosmetics and a bottle of oil. Compare also an eighth or ninth century Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan panel depicting Yamuna in the Musée Guimet, see Amina Okada, Sculptures indiennes du musée Guimet, Paris, 2000, p. 103, cat. no 37.