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A GROUP OF TWO BRASS FIGURES, DECCAN, 19TH CENTURY
奥地利
09月10日 下午5点 开拍 / 09月08日 下午3点 截止委托
拍品描述

Description

A GROUP OF TWO BRASS FIGURES, DECCAN, 19TH CENTURY
This lot is a museum deaccession and is therefore offered without reserve

India. The first a surmadani depicting the goddess Jamuna (personifying the sacred Yamuna River) standing on a toirtoise, holding a mirror in her left hand and a lamp in her right, wearing neatly incised robes and richly adorned with jewelry, the face with wide almond-shaped eyes and smiling lips. The second depicting a male deity with long hair gracefully falling over his back in a pony-tail, holding a dish in his raised left hand. (2)

Provenance: The Kienzle Family Collection, Stuttgart, Germany. Acquired between 1950 and 1985 by siblings Else (1912-2006), Reinhold (1917-2008), and Dr. Horst Kienzle (1924-2019), during their extensive travels in Asia. Subsequently inherited by Dr. Horst Kienzle and bequeathed to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Radevormwald, Germany. Released through museum deaccession in 2024. The Kienzle siblings were avid travelers and passionate collectors of Asian and Islamic art. During their travels, the Kienzle’s sought out and explored temples, monasteries, and markets, always trying to find the best pieces wherever they went, investing large sums of money and forging lasting relationships to ensure they could acquire them. Their fervor and success in this pursuit is not only demonstrated by their collection but further recorded in correspondences between Horst Kienzle and several noted dignitaries, businesses and individuals in Nepal and Ladakh. Their collection had gained renown by the 1970s, but the Kienzle’s stopped acquiring new pieces around 1985. Almost thirty years later, the collection was moved to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Radevormwald, opened by Peter Hardt in 2014. Before his death in 2019, Horst Kienzle bequeathed his entire property to Peter Hardt and legally adopted him as his son, who has been using the name Peter Kienzle-Hardt ever since.
Condition: Overall good condition with minor wear and casting irregularities, minuscule nicks, few small dents, encrustations, light warping, obvious losses. Each with a fine, naturally grown, dark patina.

Weight: 679 g (total)
Dimensions: Height 12.2 cm and 12.7 cm

The presence of Yamuna, the Hindu river goddess, aligns this surmadani (or kohl container) with themes of purity, protection, and regeneration—qualities long associated with both the goddess and the ritual use of surma. Traditionally applied to the eyes of infants and adults alike, surma was valued not only as a cosmetic but for its believed ability to cool the eyes, prevent infection, and ward off the evil eye. In regions like the Deccan, figural containers such as this one were often kept in domestic or devotional settings, where the daily act of applying kohl could become a small rite of spiritual alignment. Though industrial cosmetics have supplanted traditional surma in many urban areas, its use persists in rural and religious contexts, where it continues to carry both practical and symbolic significance.

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related figure of Jamuna from Mumbai, 10 cm high, dated to the 19th century, in the collection of the Indian Museum, Kolkata.

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价格信息

拍品估价:400 - 800 欧元 起拍价格:200 欧元  买家佣金: 35.00%

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