Subramanya: equestrian warrior with raised spear

Unidentified

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These eighteen drawings depict sculptural piers in the Pudu Mandapa (‘New Pillared Hall’), a temple festival hall built around 1630 as an addition to the Minakshi-Sundareshvara temple complex at Madurai. The hall was constructed at the behest of the Nayaka ruler Tirumala Nayak (r. 1623–59), whose reign marked a high point in temple and courtly patronage at the southern city of Madurai. The interior gallery is adorned with 124 elaborately sculpted piers, capitals and lintels decorated with narrative reliefs of the Brahmanical gods and local legends devoted to their worship. These meticulously executed ink drawings are on English laid paper watermarked ‘J. Whatman’ and with the firm’s trademark fleur-de-lis and the year 1798.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art