A powerful Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century ivory figure of a woman carved in the round by a South Indian or Sri Lankan artist has been acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA).
Also added to the collection by the museum’s trustees are a 2005 watercolor by American artist James Prosek; three Nineteenth Century lithographs by French artist Théodore Géricault; 64 African objects, mostly jewelry and other items of personal adornment; a 1930s Virginia landscape by Sallie Lee Blount Mahood; 13 watercolors and graphite drawings from the 1850s by American artist William Stanley Haseltine and unknown British artists; a painting by Richard Carlyon, a long-time professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts; and a rare American dressing service in the Art Nouveau style of Alphonse Mucha.
“As VMFA’s expansion draws closer to its grand opening on May 1 of next year, we are excited as well to be acquiring additional works of art,” says Alex Nyerges, VMFA’s director.
The carved figure is made of ivory and semi-precious stones and stands 101/4 inches tall. Trace evidence suggests that at one time the figure was painted. The figure’s highly stylized body suggests a woman who is “sensuous and aloof,” says Dr Joseph M. Dye III, VMFA’s curatorial chair and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter curator of South Asian and Islamic Art.
The figure was acquired with funds given to the museum by VMFA’s Friends of Indian Art.
The Prosek work, titled “Sailfish,” measures 5 feet by almost 11 feet and is executed in watercolor, colored pencil and graphite on paper. Prosek’s watercolors and pencil drawings of fish and fowl “now incorporate elements of fantasy that verge on Surrealism,” says John Ravenal, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The three lithographs by Géricault †”one of the towering geniuses of the Romantic period” †date from 1820, 1821 and 1823, according to Dr Mitchell Merling, VMFA’s Paul Mellon curator and head of the department of European art.
The museum is on the Boulevard at Grove Avenue. For information, 804-340-1400 or www.vmfa.museum .
