The Peter Anker collection at the Danish National Museum: A joint Indo-Danish project

Project by Dr. R. Nagaswamy, Tamil Arts Academy, and Bente Wolff, National Museum of Denmark

• The project is financed by Bikuben Foundation and is part of the galathea3 expedition.

The aim of this project is to invite an Indian specialist on South Indian temple bronzes to Denmark to produce an annotated catalogue of the collection of 24 temple bronzes found and excavated in Tranquebar in 1799. The historic-stylistic analysis of the Indian guest researcher will be supplemented by archaeometric analysis carried out by a Danish specialist from the School of Conservation or the National Museum.

The Collection consists of 14 figures and 10 pieces of temple equipment. In 1808 the Norwegian governor to Denmark, Peter Anker, brought the bronzes to Norway, from where they were purchased in 1843 for the Ethnographic Collection of what later became the National Museum of Denmark.

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