North India, Haryana or Uttar Pradesh1
Fifth to seventh century CE
Terra cotta; 32.2 x 17.2 x 12.4 cm
(12-11/16 x 6-13/16 x 4-7/8 in.)
Gift of Clara T. and Gilbert J. Yager, 90.36
Provenance: Acquired 16 May 1990 from Doris Wiener, Inc., New York.

Perched high on a rooftop, a monkey twists to survey a scene that is now missing. His keen features and furrowed brow convey a sense of strength, concentration, and controlled energy, while his crouching body appears ready to spring from the roof. This playful creature was probably part of a series of plaques decorating the terraces and plinth of a brick temple.

After being fired, such plaques were probably covered with plaster and painted in bright hues.2 Terra cotta was not a “poor man’s art” in early India; monarchs often favored the use of brick over stone for the construction of their palaces, fortifications, and civic buildings. Indeed, brick was sometimes selected as the building medium for temples even when stone was available.3

Terra cotta reliefs were employed in architectural panels from the end of the Kushan period and early in the Gupta period. It is to this latter period that we can date the Ackland’s Monkey on a Rooftop. Terra cotta proliferated in the Gupta period (ca. 300 to 600 CE), an era marked by political stability, great urban development, vigorous commerce, and lively intellectual and artistic production. At the height of the Gupta dynasty, the empire extended as far north as the Himalayan foothills, as far south as kingdoms beyond the Vindhya Mountains, as far west as Gujarat and perhaps Punjab, and as far east as Bengal.4 Terra cotta reached its highest technical perfection during this period, marked by a superfine clay body that allowed for smoothly modeled surfaces and refined features.5 The near-polished planes of the building and the monkey’s body attest to the technical refinement of the clay.

Gupta style is also distinguished by its austere elegance rather than intricate and dense decoration. The high relief of the monkey, the three-quarter-turned projecting rooftop, and the panel’s minimal surface ornament suggest that this work was conceived in terms of form and depth rather than surface treatment, a hallmark of Gupta-style clay modelers.6
The monkey’s sharply turned head directs the viewer into the now-missing composition. The framing ridges of the top, bottom, and right side of the plaque indicate that the fragment formed the right edge of a larger panel. An eerie severed paw at the foot of the building offers the only other clue to the remainder of the scene. Although it was previously identified as a narrative scene from the Ramayana, with the monkey as the hero General Hanuman, the damage sustained by the panel makes precise identification difficult.7 He may be better identified as one of the many monkeys that made up animal legions sent to fight demons, or simply a playful naturalistic figure with no specific narrative connection.8 LJT

1 I thank Joanna Williams for sharing her knowledge of Ramayana panels in Haryana, email communication (10/12/2001).
2 Vidya Dehejia, “Brick Temples: Origins and Development,” in From Indian Earth: 4,000 Years of Terracotta Art, ed. Amy G. Poster (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1986), 44.
3 Ibid., 47–48.
4 Pratapaditya Pal, The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence (New York: The Asia Society and John Weatherhill, Inc., 1978), 14–18. See also Joanna G. Williams, The Art of Gupta India: Empire and Province (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). The impact of Gupta art extended through the early years of the Pala dynasty (ca. 750–1200 CE) in eastern India. See Frederick Asher, The Art of Eastern India, 300–800 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 69–103; Susan L. Huntington and John C. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th centuries) and Its International Legacy (Seattle and London: Dayton Art Institute in Association with the University of Washington Press, 1990). Pala-period artists also excelled in the art of terra cotta, producing extensive works for the adornment of brick architecture as, for example, at Mainamati, Bangladesh. While the Ackland’s relief bears strong resemblance to the Gupta style of late-fifth-century northern India, a later date and a more eastern location should not be ruled out.
5 Devangana Desai, “The Social Millieu of Ancient Indian Terracottas 600 BC–600 AD,” in Poster, 40.
6 A Gupta terra cotta panel recovered from Bhitargaon in Uttar Pradesh and now housed in the Lucknow Museum provides a helpful comparison to the Ackland’s monkey. The child’s projecting form, minimal ornament, and subtle modeling especially in the cheeks and temples are similar to the treatment of the monkey. Additionally, the parallel incised lines that radiate back from the forehead to indicate the hairline mirrors that of the monkey. The monkey also resembles other Gupta-period reliefs attributed to Uttar Pradesh and dated to the fifth century CE. See Surendra Kumar Srivstava, Terracotta Art in Northern India (Delhi: Parimal Publications, 1996), fig. 96; Poster, figs. 96 and 97.
7 Ackland curatorial file, note from Dean Walker, 05/11/1990. The presence of the rooftop seems to have indicated a narrative content for the plaque. In the Ramayana, the monkey-god Hanuman helps Rama rescue his wife, Sita, after she had been abducted by the demon Ravana. Hanuman leaps across the ocean from India to Lanka to find Sita. He is captured, tortured, and his tail is set on fire. After escaping, he uses his burning tail to set fire to the rooftops of the city.
8 Monkeys and other animals appear frequently on temples as ornament without any overt narrative. Numerous examples can be found in Stella Snead, Animals in Four Worlds: Sculptures from India (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989); see also the terra cotta panels of the Somapura Stupa, Paharpur, and the Salban Vihara Temple, Mainamati reproduced in Asher, plates 216, 218, 246.