Pompeii Lakṣmi
“Pompeii Lakṣmi” is an ivory statuette of a female, an exemplary specimen of Indian workmanship from the 1st century CE, that was discovered in the ruins of Pompeii (which was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 79 CE). Maiuri, the Italian scholar who discovered the statuette in 1938 and published an account of it, offered an explanation of how the statuette came to be found in Pompeii, a city placed far from the trade routes to the East.
This finding speaks to the Indian-European trade relations at the time. This ivory statuette found in a residence on the Via della Abbondanza in Pompei had a dye house next to it, and it is therefore postulated that She could've been sent to Italy with a shipment of Indigo from India.
The place of production is thought to be Bhokardan, (present day Maharashtra) Satavahana territory. While she was identified as Lakṣmi, by Italian archeologist Amedeo Maiuri, she is alternatively thought to be representative of a Yakṣi. It is theorised that she may also have formed the handle of a mirror, due to the presence of a hole above her head.
ICONOGRAPHY
The statuette (m. 0.25) is represented in the round, a large figure standing between two small female attendants, with her head turned to one side, the legs stiffly crossed, one arm bent to hold the heavy earrings, and the other bent backwards behind the head. It is flat when examined from the sides, and meant to be looked from the front and the back. Except for the jewelry and the flat band worn above the girdle, the figure is naked.
The statuette is more advanced in style than the traditional works of the Śuṅga-Andhra period, and is stylistically related, instead, to some ivory statuettes from Begram in Afghanistan, and to early works from Mathura.
The iconography falls into the broad category of representations of female deities in India, although of neither the usual type of the Yakṣi nor that of Lakṣmi, these two divinities being the most widely represented goddesses in India. That she is meant to be a goddess is known by the elaborate jewelry, and by the presence of the mekhala (jeweled belt) — a charm generally worn by Yakṣis. A Yakṣi is a goddess of fertility, abundance, and vegetation and is usually supported by a water animal or connected with a tree. The title of Yakṣi includes several types of divinities, great or small. In her capacity as an agricultural divinity the Yakṣi is connected with water, and often has the attribute of a lotus flower or the vehicle of a water animal, such as the tortoise or the makara. When associated with the lotus, a Yaksi may easily confused with Lakṣmi, who, although not specifically a Yaksi,but is, however, rarely connected with the Yakṣi cult.
The Pompeian ivory statuette, while lacking the lotus flowers and pedestal, is of a type very similar to the representation of Śri at Sañcī because of the two maid servants standing on either side of the goddess. This feature is very rare in early Indian sculpture, and it is thus evident that the statuette from Pompeii stems from the same tradition to which belongs the Lakṣmi group from Sañcī.
Theres also a possibility of the mingling of western tradition (as was common in 1st century Indo-Greek art) into its iconography — features of Aphrodite-Venus imposed on the Eastern type of Lakṣmi — with both Goddesses having sprung from the water, and both often associated with war. The identification of Śri- Lakṣmi with Aphrodite-Venus would explain the absence of the lotus flower, the emblem of Lakshmi in the Pompeii figurine, and the presence of the two attendant figures which were more common in representations of Venus.
The elaborate conical earrings adorned by her also bear semblance to ones depicted on terracotta figurines prominent in eastern India during the third and second centuries BC, and a shell replica of the same was discovered at the site of Kausambi in northern India.
Dating
The statuette must precede 79 A.D., the date in which the town of Pompeii was buried by the eruptiono f Mount Vesuvius. Maiuri dated the statuette ca. 20–5o A.D., simply because the work seemed to him to be stylistically later than works from the “flourishing Śuṅga period”. A peculiarity of the statuette from Pompeii is the way in which the legs are stiffly crossed, without bending the knees. The same detail is shown in a relief from Amarāvati, dated to the 3rd or 4th century A. D.. These reliefs from Amarāvati are the only datable examples (following the Sañcī sculptures) which have both the awkward positions of the legs and arms and the slender proportions of the body. This ivory statuette, however, cannot be dated as late as the Amarāvati works because of the terminus ante quem provided by the destruction of Pompeii.
The iconography of the statuette is a mixture of Indian and Classical elements as predicted in a product of this period of active intercourse between the Eastern and the Western world. The style is that of the school of Mathura in its early period, as shown by the facial type as well as the general proportions of the body. This proves that in the first century A. D. the school of Mathura was already flourishing and exported its products to territories far away from the center of the school itself. The dating seems to be most accurate to the the second quarter of the first century A. D., as shown both by the history of the find-place of the statuette, Pompeii, and by the style of the figure, the ornaments, and the details in the headdress. The statuette is also of importance because it helps to date some of the Begram ivories, and because it is one of the rare examples of early Indian ivory carvings preserved to us.
References and further reading:
- A. Maiuri, “Statuetta eburnea di arte indiana a Pompei”
2. An Indian Statuette from Pompeii; Mirella Levi D’Ancona
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