Provenance:
Collection of Dr. Ernst and Angela Jucker
Sotheby's, New York, March 28, 2006, no. 16
Collection of Richard C. Blum and Senator Dianne Feinstein
Published:
Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 62, no. 18
At the center of this monumental Newar painting rises a richly-detailed temple, surrounded by deities and enlivened by priests, musicians, dancers, patrons, and members of the royal court. At the heart of the temple is Vishnu, enthroned beneath the protective canopy of Ananta, the seven-headed serpent.
Lakshmi and Sarasvati flank him, while nagas swim below. The register at the top of the painting presents the ten avatars of Vishnu—Matsya the fish, Kurma the tortoise, Varaha the boar, Narasimha the lion, Vamana the dwarf, Pashurama (Rama with an axe), Rama, Balarama, Buddha, and Kalkin.
An inscription running across the lower part of the painting gives the work a precise date and records the circumstances of its commission. Dated 836 Samvat (1716), it states that the paubha was consecrated following the completion of the Anantavrata rite, observed over fourteen years. The inscription names the Brahmin Suvarnadeva, son of Ratnabhadra, and records the participation of Ratnabhadra, his wife Siddhevari, Suvarnadeva, and eight others. It further expresses the wish that the painting be displayed annually wherever the rite was observed.
In the lower register, Suvarnadeva officiates before a fire offering, while his parents appear nearby as donors. At the lower right, King Bhupatindramalla of Bhaktapur appears with his young son Ranajitamalla. A leading royal patron of architecture and the arts, the king's presence links the ceremony to the cultural life of the Bhaktapur court. Musicians and dancers gathered around the royal and ritual participants give the scene the character of a formal public ceremony, reflecting the elaborate ceremonial culture of the Kathmandu Valley during the late Malla period.
