- Museum number
- 1962,1231,0.13.48
- Description
-
Opaque watercolour painting of Urga Narahsiṁha, the fierce form of the deity. The twelve-armed god, seated on the stump of the pillar from which he has emerged, disembowels the daitya king Hiranyakaśipu in front of the king’s son Prahlada, a staunch Vaishnava. In Narahsiṁha’s uppermost pair of hands are Hiranyakashipu’s intestines, surrounding his head like a gory halo. Of his central hands, two are raised to his mouth and two rip out the king’s bowels. In his remaining six hands the god holds various weapons. In his right hands are a danda (staff), a sword and hala (plough). In his left are a buckler, sword and gada (mace). The king has a dark complexion, reddish hair and protruding fangs and sports a moustache. At the bottom left of the page stands a diminutive Prahlada, dressed in a simple lower garment, with his hair tied in a kudumi and his hands in anjali mudra. At the top of the page are Brahma, Śiva and Viṣṇu (right), their consorts (left) and two winged gandharvas (musicians), who strew flower petals over Narahsiṁha.
- Production date
- 1830 (circa)
- Dimensions
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Height: 22.60 centimetres
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Width: 17.60 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Dallapiccola 2010:
This painting is part of an album of ninety-one paintings (1962,1231,0.13.1–91) illustrating gods, goddesses, saints and scenes from Hindu mythology. One of the most interesting features of the album are the eight major temple sites included: Srirangam, Tiruvallur, Rameswaram, Tirunelveli, Palani, Madurai, Thiruvanaikoil (Tiruvanaikka or Jambukeshvara) and Tiruchchirappalli. Furthermore, included in this series are some of the most important murtis enshrined in temples such as Venkatachalapati of Tirumala, Vitthala of Pandharpur and Thyagarajasvami of Tiruvarur. The geographical area covered by the paintings encompasses the totality of the former Madras Presidency and extends into the former Bombay Presidency, giving an insight into the most revered pilgrimage sites in early nineteenth-century southern India.
The drawings were first done in pencil, traces of which are still visible. In the course of his work the artist has sometimes changed his mind, as for instance in the positioning of the arms and feet of the figures. Slight shading has been consistently applied to the faces, arms and legs of the figures to suggest three-dimensionality. The vibrant colours and the delicacy of the drawings make the figures stand out from the pages.
The pages are numbered in reverse order from the back, on paper water marked ‘1820’. Occasionally, a brief note is pencilled in English, probably by a British Museum curator, at the back of some of the temple depictions. An almost identical work, albeit containing a hundred drawings, each with bilingual inscriptions in Telugu and English, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IM 355-1923 to 454-1923). The sequence of the images is similar to that in this album.
- Location
- On display (G33/dc66b/s3)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
See 1962,1231.0.13.1
- Acquisition date
- 1962
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred from the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books (OMPB) in 1962.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1962,1231,0.13.48
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: 1162 (Egerton number)
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Miscellaneous number: 1167 (Egerton number)
