Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces and Museum Quality Series | October 2004

78 OSIAN ’ s–CONNOISSEURS OF ART 48 Chintamoni KAR [ b.1915/ Kharagpur, West Bengal] Odalisque S/d on base Bronze, 1994 55.5 x 20.0 x 31.0 cm (21.9 x 7.9 x 12.2 in) Rs. 700,000 – 800,000 $ 15,100 – 17,300 £ 8,275 – 9,475 ‘You had the courage to lift your eyes to the faces of the young women and notice the fear which becomes the shy grace of the female. You caressed the contours of their torsos, and their hips, and moulded the lyrical fall of their limbs in coy movement… You have evoked the body’s rapture which the prudes call ‘spirit’. You saw the curvaceous line, which defines the woman’s body in the Harappa torso, through the Yakshis of Mathura to Amravati, Nagarjunakonda, Ellora, Elephanta, Khajuraho to Konarak, and later in linear rhythms of the woman’s body making it a musical instrument of which the appeal is in evocation of deeply sensuous impulses in the onlooker.’– Mulk Raj Anand, rpt. in Chintamoni Kar: A Retrospective Exhibition 1930-85. Calcutta: Indian Museum 1985. ‘From the time of Delacroix ‘Odalisque’ is a favourite subject of the French artists where a nude or semi-nude is painted in the pose of this sculpture. The French found that the Turkish kings kept women in different poses for interior decoration in the same fashion as a flower vase, looking equally beautiful. Chintamoni Kar, while abroad had made 4-5 Odalisques in his sculptural output. This one, made in 1994 in India, is the last.’ – Prakash Kejriwal, 2004.