STÈLE REPRÉSENTANT UNE SURASUNDARI EN MARBRE INDE OCCIDENTALE, XII/XIIIE SIÈCLESTÈLE REPRÉSENTANT UNE SURASUNDARI EN MARBREINDE OCCIDENTALE, XII/XIIIE SIÈCLE83.5 cm (32 7/8 in.) highA WHITE MARBLE STELE OF A SURASUNDARIWESTERN INDIA, 12TH/13TH CENTURY印度西部 十二/十三世紀 白大理石天女石碑Provenance: With Claude de Marteau, New York, by 1973Published: Jan van Alphen (ed.), Steps to Liberation: 2500 Years of Jain Art and Religion, Antwerp, 2000, p. 166, no. 91. Exhibited: Steps to Liberation: 2500 Years of Jain Art and Religion, Ethnographic Museum, Antwerp, 26 May - 15 October 2000. The nimble dancing goddess wields a sword above her head in the mode of a protector. She would have joined a host of surasundaris, celestial beauties whose presence around the temple walls is auspicious. Such figures strengthen the potency of the prayers offered in the temple, as their beauty beckons the deity to listen to them. Another bracket of the same origin was formerly on loan to the Denver Art Museum (1970–85) from the collection of Christian Humann, later to become the Pan-Asian Collection (Sotheby's, New York, 20 & 21 September 1985, lot 283). As one of Claude de Marteau's most important patrons, it is likely that Humann acquired the bracket from de Marteau's inventory in New York during the 1960s. Other related examples can be found in Davidson, Arts of the Indian Subcontinent, 1968, p. 48, no. 61; Pal, Indian Sculpture, 1988, p. 134, no. 58; Pal, The Peaceful Liberators , 1994, p. 195, nos. 77A & 77B; Heeramaneck, Masterpieces of Indian Sculpture, 1979, no. 95; Pal et al., Dancing to the Flute, 1997, p. 114, no. 61b.