Christ Child

Description Rock crystal figures of the Christ Child are among the rarest of luxury items to have been made for the Portuguese in India and Sri Lanka. This sculpture was likely once adorned with a golden crown inlaid with jewels and would have been elevated on an equally elaborate pedestal. Though the subject was introduced by Christian missionaries, the figures were sculpted by local artists. The large eyes, frontal posture, and soft, fleshy limbs resemble features seen in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain devotional images. This devotional image was produced in the Portuguese colony of Goa, a Jesuit training center for missionaries on India’s western coast.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
9/21/1976	Examination	other
3/20/1978	Treatment	cleaned
5/24/2013	Examination	Examined

Exhibitions

• Undercover Stories in Art. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1980.
• Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. 2015-2016.

Provenance Dikran Kelekian, Paris and New York; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1926; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1926