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View at the museum ↗Two Beautiful Women (Surasundari) Dressing with an Attendant
Unrecorded artist10th/11th century
- Attribution
- India Madhya Pradesh
- Medium
- Sandstone
- Physical dimensions
- 48.1 × 29.9 × 14.4 cm (19 × 11 3/4 × 5 11/16 in.)
- Credit line
- James W. and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection. Gift of Marilynn Alsdorf
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
This sculpture of semidivine women, likely intended for the exterior of a temple, illustrates how the sacred and the sensuous are intertwined in Hinduism. Such figures of female abundance—with full breasts and wide hips, wearing heavy jewelry—are associated with fertility and prosperity. These women are engaged in adorning themselves: one uses a mirror to apply vermilion to the part atop her head, and another wrings water from her long hair. Their idealized forms infused the temple and surrounding land with vitality, linking external and spiritual beauty as pathways to the divine.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0