Carved Wooden Balinese Figure With Calf. Inscribed on bottom: "Wimurdjana Mas."

Size: 4 3/8 x 4 3/4 x 21 1/4 in. 
 

Bali is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, east of Java and west of Lombok. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of the Bali economy. Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.9% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. It is also home to a unified confederation of kingdoms composed of 10 traditional royal Balinese houses, each house ruling a specific geographic area. The confederation is the successor of the Bali Kingdom, which reigned for almost a thousand years before the Dutch subjugated them in 1908, and is not recognized by the government of Indonesia. Bali was first inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian people who migrated originally from the island of Taiwan to Southeast Asia and Oceania. In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, the Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Vaishnava, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead. Around 914 the first king, Sri Kesarivarma, is mentioned in their historical texts, as well as revealing an independent and progressive Bali with a distinct dialect, where Buddhism and Shaivism were practiced simultaneously. During the colonial period anthropologists like Margaret Mead and artists like Walter Spies visited and helped create a western image of the island as an unspoiled paradise where mankind lived in harmony with nature. 

This sculpture of polished wood depicts a traditional Balinese dancer, with a small calf at her feet.

Cracks throughout.