Collecting and Scattering: The Dispersal and Reassembly of a South Indian Goddess Temple

FAIN: FT-55254-07

Padma Kaimal
Colgate University (Hamilton, NY 13346-1338)

Fifteen sculptures that were once part of a single, tenth-century goddess temple in India now reside in eleven separate museums across North America and Western Europe, thanks to the art dealer C. T. Loo in Paris and the archaeologist Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil. My work explores the surprisingly complex motives and identities of individuals and institutions involved in this process. The story of this process demonstrates that dispersing and collecting are often the same activity perceived from different angles. The chapter I write will address the reception of these sculptures in U.S. museums.

Associated Products

Scattered Goddesses (Travels with the Yoginis) (Book)
Title: Scattered Goddesses (Travels with the Yoginis)
Author: Padma Kaimal
Abstract: This is a book about the lost home, the new homes, and the journeys in between of nineteen sculptures from tenth-century South India, that now reside in at least twelve separate museums across North America, Western Europe, and South India. After piecing together what these goddesses and their former companions might have meant when they were together, the book traces them into the hands of private collectors and public museums as these objects became more thoroughly separated from each other with each transaction. In the process of export and purchase, and in the hostile as well as loving receptions these sculptures received within South Asia, collecting and scattering are found to be the same activity experienced from different points of view.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: www.asian-studies.org
Publisher: Association for Asian Studies, Inc.
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9780924304675
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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