Shrine Doors with Indra, Divine Regent of the East

* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

Shrine Doors with Indra, Divine Regent of the East

India, Gujarat, circa 1850-1900
Architecture; Architectural Elements
Repoussé silver sheet over wood
62 × 35 3/4 × 2 in. (157.48 × 90.81 × 5.08 cm) Mount: 64 1/2 × 39 3/4 × 8 in. (163.83 × 100.97 × 20.32 cm)
Gift of Julian Sands in honor of his mother, Brenda (M.2013.57a-b)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

...
Silver shrine portals can be found throughout South Asia. Made of repoussé silver sheet over wood, they are a well-known, albeit little studied, feature of later South Asian religious and palatial architecture. They were created out of a shared artistic tradition, rather than a particular religious affiliation, as silver shrine portals are found at sites sacred to various sects of Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Islam. Although the medium and technique are constant, the individual portals and sets of doors are thematically differentiated according to the patron’s desires by appropriate variations in iconography and decorative motif. These silver shrine doors can be stylistically attributed to western India, most likely Gujarat, and date from circa 1850-1900. The doors are in the form of a cusped niche supported by baluster columns, the latter element a distinctive characteristic of northern Indian Mughal architecture and paintings from the early reign of Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) through the end of the Mughal dynasty in 1858. On the obverse, the lower panels depict the four-armed Hindu deity Indra in his auxiliary role as the Divine Regent of the East. The spandrels are graced with angel-like flying figures carrying garlands, which represent a class of semidivine divinities called vidyadharas (bearers of wisdom). On the reverse, the lower panels portray male guardians in contemporary western Indian garb, who serve to protect the sacred threshold and inner sanctum.
More...

Bibliography

  • Adams, Sean. How Design Makes Us Think: and Feel and Do Things. Hudson, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2021.