seriously ugly :) what was the artist thinking when he drew that nose! in fact, all the features are too big for a face that size!

She isn't listening to the parrot. Rajamatangi represents knowledge and art and true speech (she governs the power of all articulation and vocalisation). The veena and parrot indicate these aspects.

Aesthetic norms change over time. The ideals of beauty have shifted. Company style paintings were created by Indian artists for British patrons.

This doesn't conform to Indian aesthetics of the time. It's just bad art. You have only to look at temple sculptures to see the aesthetics. The broad shoulders are characteristic of the representation of many figures, but that face is not.

Also this posture is lalitasana, the posture of leisure. Not mukhasana, which is something else altogether. I cannot believe the rot that is written in V&A sometimes. Sheesh.

Deepa Krishnan: Thank you for your clarifications. Maybe you should help V&A correct the narration for this image or any other you may come across. They in fact welcome it. This is the link: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/crowdsourcing/

The caption below the image does not say it is "Rajamatangi"! It reads 'Parivala (?) pakshi" and the date mentioned there is 1923. Looks V&A has identified it wrongly!

After zooming it and reading it carefully, I make out,"Sawroo (?) Kumbah - Goddess of Fiddle." As I said earlier, there is no mention of the name 'Rajamatangi'.

... For all of the ' rot ' that museums and foundations such as the Victoria & Albert 'speak' from time to time (and I do agree, in many cases, their cataloging procedures are far from perfect and they often get things wrong) would you prefer that they did not provide free , global access to substantial parts of their various collections ? ... They are, afterall, under no strict obligation to provide such a service and I for one feel that that such efforts deserve our support rather than our criticism. Many people seem to be under the impression that these institutions are staffed by an army of academics and world-renowned experts... the reality is somewhat different ... owing to the VAST quantities of material that these organisations are obliged to process much of the actual catalogoing (and by extension, the actual referencing/ annotation connected to any one individual item/ illustration etc) is conducted by rather lowly ' researchers' (many of whom work on a voluntary basis) and who may have no direct knowledge or experience with the materials that they are working with or are attempting to identify. In most cases, these institutions are accutely aware of their own shortcomings, and that is why - as the RBSI quite rightly points out - they encourage disgruntled members of the public to get into contact - so that any errors or inaccuracies might be put to right - which, apart from anything else, saves them time and money. You will find that the British Library, the National Archives, the V & A... and, I have no doubt, many other institutions throughout the world, have such a facility for public interaction/ comment/ corrections etcetera and so on ...

Mr.Craig, you Sir speak a lot of sense.

I think Deepa Krishnan is unduly harsh. I feel the picture is not a stand alone painting of a proper size. It must be part of a A4 size book depicting various shakti incarnations. It's basic purpose is to depict the basic features of Rajamatangi. अथ राजमातंगी ध्यानं ॥तत्कल्पे॥ रत्नासनां श्यामगात्रीं । शृन्वंतीं शुकजल्पितां । अब्जन्यास्त्यैक चरणां। चारु चंद्रा वतांसकं । वीणा माला पयंतिं च। तिलकॊद्वासि फालकां । सौगंधिक स्रक्कलिका। चुळिकां रक्त वाससं। विभूपण्येभ्रूषितां च। मातंगीं प्रणमाम्यहं । श्यामवर्णः। I think to that extent the painting has succeeded in capturing the description given in the above sloka. Deepa Krishnan is right it could have been better but that is besides the point. But then Rajamatanagi is also dark in colour and she is the daughter of Sage Matanaga.

I feel the artist's interest was more on bringing out the feature of the Goddess than confining to perfection of art. If that was his purpose, we should say he is greatly successful in his effort.

Thank you Deepa Krishnan for inadvertently provoking so many scholars to come out with their opinion on the Goddess. Quite enlightening... But I do agree with you...the features in the painting could have been made much more delicate and pleasing to the eye.

I clicked on that link and registered on V&A, and there is no way to comment on this photo. What they have right now is a participative project where you can donate your time to cropping photos for better viewing.

Thanks Deepa Krishnan. I am sure your contribution to these museum sites would be truly worthwhile. There must be another way to help them correct the narratives to these images.

Gouri Satya, Parivala means pigeon or dove in Kannada. In English it is written "Saroosovathee the Goddess of learning" as per the V&A site. It is said to have been purchased in 1923. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O404798/the-goddess-rajamatangi-painting-unknown/

The Goddess Rati is usually associated with pigeon, no? Maybe this is her. I have to do some googling and see.

As i said earlier, the link confirms that this picture was from a series of 100 drawings of Hindu deities created in South India . It is a parrot and the sloka also says suka -jalpita . Even Rati - daughter of Prajapati Daksha & wife of Kama is associated with parrot . But in this case Rati and Kama are said to use parrot as their vahana - vehicle.