Goddess Annapurna

mid-19th century

Annapurna, the provider of rice, gives alms to Shiva, her consort shown here in a mendicant's saffron robes. Annapurna is a form of Durga and often depicted in this format. Annapurna sits on a lotus and she is depicted with her third eye. She holds in one of her hands a plate full of rice and with the other hand she gives rice to Shiva from a spoon. Annapurna is depicted wearing a blouse under her sari and this is an unusual departure. The contemporary Kalighat paintings as a routine showed women clad in sari but without any blouse and in fact that was customery of the period. Their respective mounts, the lion and the bull, are shown in crouching posture below, both are very stylised. The borders of the painting and the entire composition contains repeated written invocations to Durga in the Bengali script.