Fragment of a railing coping: a winged griffin and youthful combatant
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.This fragment of a coping from the first limestone railing at Amaravati’s Great Stupa formed part of a frieze of grand beasts, both natural and mythological, alternating with athletic young men. The imagery likely reflects that pastoral people’s wealth and power were defined by their taming of the animal world. Griffin imagery, introduced into Mauryan northern India from Achaemenid Iran, was sustained by ongoing cultural exchange with Hellenized West Asia. This tableau, once framed by aquatic lotus-vine creepers above and a Hellenistic bead-and-reel pattern below, points to the hybridity of the imagery circulating in early Buddhist India.
Artwork Details
- Title: Fragment of a railing coping: a winged griffin and youthful combatant
- Period: Sada
- Date: 2nd–1st century BC
- Culture: India, Amaravati Great Stupa, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
- Medium: Limestone
- Dimensions: H. 19 in. (48.3 cm); W. 30 in. (76.2 cm); D. 5 1/2 in. (14 cm)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Lent by Archaeological Museum ASI, Amaravati, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
- Rights and Reproduction: Photo by Theirry Ollivier
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art