- Title
- Shrine Doors with Indra, Divine Regent of the East
- Date Made
- circa 1850-1900
- Medium
- Repoussé silver sheet over wood
- Dimensions
- 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)
- Accession Number
- M.2013.57a-b
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial 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.
- Selected Bibliography
- Markel, Stephen. "Hindu Cosmology and Mythology." Orientations 55, no.6 (2024): 39-47.
