Untitled (Nature Spirit [Yakshi])

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Gallery 331, Asian Art, third floor (Dutt Gallery)

Main Building

Untitled (Nature Spirit [Yakshi])

1917?

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (American (born Ceylon), 1877–1947)

One of the great art historians of the first half of the twentieth century, Coomaraswamy was raised in England but spent some years in South Asia, where he became connected with Rabindranath Tagore and his circle. He later served as Keeper of Indian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Coomaraswamy produced this illustration of a nature spirit for one of his books. It depicts a sculpture carved into a railing that once encircled a second- to first-century BCE Buddhist stupa (reliquary mound) at Bharhut in north-central India. British archaeologists unearthed the railing in the late nineteenth century and reassembled it in the India Museum in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where it received considerable public attention.

Gallery 331, Asian Art, third floor (Dutt Gallery)

Object Details

Title:

Untitled (Nature Spirit [Yakshi])
Chulakoka Devata

Date:

1917?

Artist:

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (American (born Ceylon), 1877–1947)

Medium:

Graphite on paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 11 × 5 3/4 inches (27.9 × 14.6 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

Gift of Stella Kramrisch, 1987

Accession Number:

1987-52-11

Geography:

Made in Sri Lanka, Asia

Context:

Period: Modern Period

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Gallery 331, Asian Art, third floor (Dutt Gallery)

Main Building

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