ADHAIDVIPA PATA DE MADYALOKA GUJARAT, XVIIIE SIÈCLEADHAIDVIPA PATA DE MADYALOKAGUJARAT, XVIIIE SIÈCLEDistemper on cloth. 119 x 117 cm (46 7/8 x 46 in.), irregular AN ADHAIDVIPA PATA OF MADHYALOKA GUJARAT, 18TH CENTURY古吉拉特邦 十八世紀 耆那教宇宙學中觀世界圖 Published: Jan van Alphen, et al., Steps to Liberation: 2500 Years of Jain Art and Religion, Antwerp, 2000, p. 177, no. 42. Exhibited: Steps to Liberation: 2,500 Years of Jain Art and Religion, Etnografisch Museum Antwerpen, 26 May - 15 October 2000. Provenance: With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1980s Discussing this Jain cosmological map, which Claude de Marteau displayed prominently in his dining room, van Alphen notes, "This extremely detailed and richly coloured representation of Adhaidvipa - the 'two and a half' continents - is most probably based on an early seventeenth-century model. However, the clothes worn by the various figures, the architectural details of the palaces and also the aquatic figures point to the eighteenth century. The painting shows some unusual features, the extra ring between the central continent, Jambudvipa, and the surrounding salt ocean, Lavanoda, for instance. It is abundantly filled with flowers and trees in a purely decorative style. Great care has been taken in the painting of the figures in the oceans, one of the few areas in which the artist enjoyed a measure of freedom in the otherwise strictly defined representation of the madhyaloka, 'the middle world'. A great many inscriptions are included within the area of the 'two and a half' continents, which are more usually found around its circumference."