Nymph

This nude study is from Chintamoni Kar’s Nymph series of bronze sculptures capturing the female form in its many poetic stances—reclining, resting, preening. A similar series, titled Nayeeka, was executed in the following decade. The bronze under consideration here brings focus on a woman who is stretching her limbs in a break from work, accentuating the taut contours of her body. The pose is unabashed, which hints at a private chamber of repose. The patina and the pose both bear a strong resemblance to nude studies made by another Indian modernist, K. H. Ara, in another medium (oil), in another decade.