Provenance Information

James W. Alsdorf (1913–1990) and Marilynn B. Alsdorf (1925–2019), Winnetka and Chicago, IL, by Oct. 5, 1978 [New York 1978]; by descent to Marilynn B. Alsdorf, Chicago, 1990 [on long-term loan at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 17, 1997; publicly promised as a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997; signed a promised gift agreement for the work, 2002]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2021.

Exhibition Information

New York, The Asia Society, The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence, Oct. 5– Dec. 3, 1978, cat. 51.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Manifestations of Shiva, Mar. 29–June 7, 1981, cat. 4; Fort Worth, TX, Kimbell Art Museum, Aug. 1–Sept. 27, 1981; Seattle Art Museum, Nov. 25, 1981–Jan. 31, 1982; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mar. 23–May 5, 1982.

Art Institute of Chicago, A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, Aug. 2–Oct. 26, 1997, cat. 5.

Publication Information

Pratapaditya Pal, The Ideal Image. The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence (New York: The Asia Society/John Weatherhill, Inc., 1978), 101, cat. 51.

Stella Kramrisch, Manifestations of Shiva (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1981), 5, cat. 4.

Pratapaditya Pal with contributions by Stephen Little, A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago in association with Thames and Hudson, 1997), 14 (ill.), 272–73, cat. 5.

Section of the AAMD Guidelines relied upon for the exception to 1970

Cumulative facts and circumstances

Explain why the object fits the exception set forth above

This acquisition falls within two exceptions: cumulative facts and circumstances as well as gift or bequest expected or on loan prior to 2008. First, the cumulative facts and circumstances known to the Art Institute of Chicago at the time of the acquisition allowed it to make an informed judgment to acquire the object. The exact date that this object was purchased is unknown; according to the exhibition history, the object was acquired by the Alsdorfs before Oct. 5, 1978. Attempts to determine from whom the Alsdorfs acquired the object were unsuccessful. The object was first exhibited by The Asia Society in New York in 1978. It was also part of an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1981, which traveled to the Kimbell Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It appeared in an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997 and was displayed publicly there, in the Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art Galleries in McKinlock Court from 2001 until 2005, and again in the Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic Art between 2008 to 2017 and from 2018 to the present. The object has been published in three major catalogs on South Asian Art: The Ideal Image, The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence (1978); Manifestations of Shiva (1981); and in A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection (1997). In addition, the object will be the only example in the Art Institute’s collection of an Ekamukhalinga sculpture, the focus of Shaivite worship, from the classical Gupta period (6th century CE) of Indian art. Second, the acquisition of the object was by gift and the object was on loan to the Art Institute prior to 2008. The Alsdorfs lent the object to the Art Institute of Chicago on Sept. 17, 1997; Marilynn Alsdorf publicly promised the object as a gift to the museum in 1997; and the object joined a larger group of promised gifts in an agreement signed in 2002.