Director’s Foreword | Susan M. Taylor

Shortly after my arrival in New Orleans over a decade ago, it was with surprise and delight that I encountered the remarkable collection of Dr. Siddharth K. Bhansali, a New Orleanian who not only has a world-class collection of Jain bronzes, but also a highly engaging and less well-known collection of small ivories and larger-scale wooden sculptures that once adorned the homes of the Catholic faithful and the interiors of churches in what was once called Portuguese India.

This catalog and the exhibition it accompanies are the first scholarly review of this collection. The majority of works were acquired in London more than fifty years ago, and in the subsequent decades have served to decorate Bhansali’s homes in New Orleans and Mississippi. Although a Jain himself, Bhansali found resonance and beauty in these works, created for the promotion of a belief system far different from his own. We are grateful to independent scholar Dr. Robert J. Del Bontà for his work on the collection. Consolidating existing scholarship with new research, Del Bontà has provided context for the creation of these works and their iconography, as well as providing parallels with Hindu religious practices, the faith tradition of most of the objects’ creators.

The complexities of presenting art created during a colonial era are many. The absence of artists’ names and individual identities is not unusual in the realm of ecclesiastical art nor in any art created during occupation by a colonial power. Similarly, the original context for the works has been lost, as many of the churches built during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries have been closed or otherwise lost to time. The small ivories, by their nature, were portable devotional objects, and many have moved over time to locations far from the site of their creation.

NOMA’s talented exhibitions and publications team have ensured the success of the exhibition and catalog. Jennifer Ickes, Head Registrar, has ably led the team of art handlers and registrars; Roman Alokhin and Sesthasak Boonchai created the beautiful images; and Mary Degnan and David Johnson ensured the catalog design and editing were flawless. My thanks, in particular, extend to Lisa Rotondo-McCord, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, for proposing this project. The success of this undertaking is due to her thoughtful interpretation and presentation of the material with a sure curatorial hand guiding it from concept to completion. Her determination to present it to our public in a thorough, contextual manner has ensured a beautiful, engaging outcome.

Of course, my greatest thanks is to Sid Bhansali, without whose prescient collecting and generosity in sharing his collections with the public, this project would not have been possible.

Susan M. Taylor The Montine McDaniel Director, New Orleans Museum of Art