Shiva Panchanana
1885
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1885
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Shiva Panchanana is a 1885 paint by Unknown, a Impressionism work, depicting Kalighat, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows a blue-skinned figure with four faces and four arms. The figure sits cross-legged, holding a small drum in one hand and a flame in another. Its hair is a tangled mass of snakes, and it wears a red cloth draped over one shoulder. The background is mostly plain, with bright yellow and orange patches near the bottom. The figure looks like a god from Hindu tradition, but the style is loose and colorful. The artist used bold outlines and flat colors, almost like a sketch. Next, look up kalighat to see more paintings from this style.
A painting rendered in opaque watercolour on paper, the work portrays Shiva Panchanana, the five-faced form of Shiva. The piece was acquired by the museum from Miss M. Steele in 1950, having been part of a collection inherited from her mother, a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge in 1894. According to Miss Steele, her grandmother, who had lived in India, may have originally collected the series.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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