Eight Armed Durga

2012.239

Eight Armed Durga

2012.239

Description

Eight armed goddess are standing on a wooden pedestal with legs slightly apart within a circular arch decorated with an engraved floral pattern. She is canopied by seven hooded cobras. Her eyes are adorned with rubies. She is crowned and wearing usual ornaments like earrings, necklaces, and girdles. She is depicted wearing a dhoti in a lower garment and paduka or khadava on her feet and holding a pataka, flower, bud, arrow and sword in her right hand and trident, damaru, dhanushya and patra in her left hand respectively.

The collection of Indian bronzes from different parts of India has been collected over 50 years ago by Dr. Ernst Mischa Jucker and Angela Jucker. The Swiss couple who lived in Ettinger outside Basel began collecting Indian folk art and cloth paintings in the early 1960s.

Dr. Jucker was a leading research chemist and top manager of Sandoz, a predecessor company of Novartis visited Orissa for a Science conference in 1959 where he met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and spoke about Indian culture, art and religion. Fascinated with the information Dr. Jucker heard from Panditji, he visited a few antique shops hoping to find objects linked with the Indian tribal and rural people.

Dr. Jucker entrusted the collection to Dr. Daniel Vasella of Novartis, hoping that it would find its way back into a museum in India. Dr. Vasella through Ranjit Shahani, Country President, Novartis India gifted the collection of 850 bronzes to the museum in the year 2012.

Angela and Ernst Mischa Jucker Collection.

Collection

Sculptures

Object Type

Sculpture

Material

Bronze

Schools/Culture/Period

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Technique

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Date

19th Century CE

Location

South India

Dimension

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