Ganesha; Sculpture, bronze, 1775-1820, Deccan, India

A simply modelled figure of sitting Ganesha. Small holes in his upper hands would have held missing attributes, his trunk dips to sweets in his lower left hand; the lower right is in abhaya mudra, the gesture of reassurance. A rat, the vahana (vehicle) of Ganesha, sits between his legs and a cobra is wrapped around his belly. The figure has a brassy colour and shows little wear.

Given to the India Museum, London, by Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1754- 1821), who may have acquired it some time around 1800-10.

Transferred from the India Museum to the South Kensington Museum (now V&A) in 1879.

The India Museum Slip Book entry, number 345, states that it was presented by 'Col. Mackenzie'. Colonel Colin Mackenzie was a British antiquarian who completed a major survey of the Mysore kingdom in southern India and became the first Surveyor General of India in 1815. Born in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Mackenzie travelled to India in 1783 as an Infantry cadet in the 78th Seaforth Highlanders but in 1786 transferred to become an Engineer in the Madras Army. He spent the remainder of his life in Asia, much of it in southern India, where he carried out a survey of the Nizam of Hyderabad's Dominions (1792-8) and the Mysore Survey (1799-1810), although he also worked in other parts of India and in Java (1811-13). Further information can be found in Howes, J. Illustrating India: the Early Colonial Investigations of Colin Mackenzie (1784-1821), Oxford University Press, 2010 and other publications. Mackenzie's serious research into antiquities began after his return from an expedition to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1796 and was made possible by his association with Kavelli (or Cavelly) Venkata Boria, a Brahmin whose talents as a translator of Indian languages were of great importance to Mackenzie and some of whose family members continued to work with Mackenzie after Boria's death in 1803.

The Slip Book entry for this figure describes it as 'Idol (Bronze)... Ganesh, the god of wisdom'.

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