From card: "Purchased in Bombay [Mumbai]. [Formerly] on display [NMNH Exhibit] Hall 8, Case 27. Assembled from numerous pieces of elaborately carved but unfinished brown wood. 2 boards on side, ... frame and front floor edge show traces of light blue, chartreuse, white, and orange enamel (probably house paint). In form of portico, roof supported by a column at each corner. Roof beams, edge of roof and floor, and window frame have floral and foliate decor. Columns bear design of many horizontal layers. Architrave, columns, angle braces, beam ends, still, carved with human or divine figures and animals, peacock and elephant predominating. Architrave shows 4 armed goddess holding aloft 2 small elephants and flanked by figures holding fly whisks; large elephants with 3 figures each; figure seated in front of stupa model, and small figure with fly whisk. ... opening is filled with open diamond fretwork carved behind crossed bars. Painted pieces, floor board and the 4 angle brace figures do not match the rest of the specimen. The whole may have been assembled of parts from several but originally unrelated objects or the original may have been one and may have been added to or repaired. Generally well made, some of carving crudely done. At least 6 angle brace figures, and some other decorative parts missing. Carving chipped, split or worn in several places. Identified by collector. Similar temple carving, pl. 202, Arts and Crafts of India and Pakistan, Shanti Swarup, 1957, Bombay; and pl. 1-29 and 49-61, Arts and Crafts of Travancore, Kramrisch, Cousins, Poudval, 1948, London.
The information below has been provided by John E. Cort, Professor of Asian and Comparative Religions, Denison University, Granville, OH, 25 June 2014: The object is a Shvetambar Jain household shrine (or, more properly, the façade to a shrine) from Gujarat. It is known in Gujarati as a ghar derasar ("house shrine"). Inside the opening would have been an altar, on which would be installed one or more images of Jinas (also known as Tirthankaras). The opening would have included two doors, meeting in the middle, which would close the altar space when the images were not being worshipped. The doors are missing, which is why the earlier comments mistakenly identified this as a temple window. The figures on the two pillars and four pilasters that support the porch of the shrine are dvarapalas ("door guardians"), who serve a protective function. The bracket figures are heavenly beings (apsaras-s) who celebrate the worship of the Jina by bringing garlands of heavenly flowers, and playing instruments. Immediately above the door is a carved Jina, seated in meditation. In the center of the wider register above the door is a four-armed figure of the goddess Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and auspiciousness. On either side of her are two auspicious elephants who are lustrating her. Hence this iconography is known as Gaja-Lakshmi ("Elephant-Lakshmi"). Also on this register, immediately above the inner pilasters flanking the door, are two more seated Jina figures. Ghar derasars are almost always carved from teak wood, much of which came from South India. In situ they were usually painted, as we see in many of the others in museum collections. This one probably was painted as well. The scholarship on these objects is insufficient for us to give a firm estimate of date or exact provenance. The ghar derasar at the Nelson-Atkins has recently been dated through Carbon-14 process to a range of 1455 – 1635 CE. Some other ghar derasars in museum collections have been assigned dates ranging from the 17th through 19th centuries; however, all dates except for the Nelson-Atkins one are based on a stylistic analysis of a very small corpus of examples. Nor is it possible to assign a specific place of origin. There are examples of larger public temples with similar wood carving from Patan in North Gujarat down to Surat in South Gujarat. Very few ghar derasars have been documented in situ; most of the scholarship has looked at ones in museum collections, which in turn were purchased by dealers in cities such as Bombay (now Mumbai), Delhi and Ahmedabad. The identification of this as coming from Travancore is clearly incorrect. A quick perusal of the examples of Travancore wood carving in Arts and Crafts of Travancore shows the two regional traditions to be quite distinct in both the function and style of the wood carvings. The reference to plate 202 of Arts and Crafts of India and Pakistan is more helpful. This plate shows some of the stone carving on the Hathising (or Hutheesing) Jain temple in Ahmedabad, construction of which was completed in 1847 CE. (See M. A. Dhaky, ed., Hutheesing Heritage: The Jain Temple at Ahmedabad [Ahmedabad: Hutheesing Kesarising Trust, 1998.]) Carvers in the two media clearly worked within a common stylistic idiom. I know of at least eight Gujarati Jain ghar derasars in American museum collections (in addition to ones in museums in India and the United Kingdom). In addition to NMNH, these are: Cincinnati Museum of Art; Dayton Art Institute; Denver Art Museum; Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; St. Petersburg Museum. Some of these can be seen on-line, to give a better sense of how the NMNH home shrine fits into the larger genre: http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/explore/collection/collections/?u=6930882 http://www.daytonartinstitute.org/node/103 http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions/jain-shrine.cfm http://explore-art.pem.org/object/south-asian-and-korean-arts-and-cultures/E28297/detail http://www.fine-arts.org/collection/jaina-shrine/
