Saraswati — Original Keliki Miniature by Marjana

Description

A figure emerges from a dark field in full ceremonial dress, every detail of crown, drape, and ornament rendered with the steadiness of a hand trained over many decades.

The Keliki style originated in the village of Keliki in the Ubud region of Bali, developing through the twentieth century as painters refined a tradition of dense iconographic composition on small formats. Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts, appears throughout Balinese ceremonial painting, her iconography governed by precise conventions specifying the placement of her four arms, her instruments, her crown, and the lotus on which she is often depicted.

This miniature was painted by Marjana, a fifth-generation Keliki artist whose family traces directly to the Pita Maha cooperative of the 1930s. He works with natural pigments applied in successive fine layers on a prepared support, building the composition without preliminary sketching in the manner of the Keliki tradition. The figure is rendered in full ceremonial form: crowned, haloed, each element of dress and ornamentation placed according to the iconographic requirements of the subject.

This is an original Keliki miniature, signed by the artist. Exact dimensions are available on request. The work is unique and not reproduced. Country of origin: Bali, Indonesia.

Marjana’s paintings are held in the collection of the official residence of the Governor of Bali and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This piece came directly from his atelier in Ubud.