Sri Lanka, Kandyan Chief, 17th-18th century, Bronze, Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mark and Iuliana Phillips
The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena opens “The Art of Kandy: Sri Lanka’s Last Kingdom” today, Friday, Sept. 4, a focused exhibition of 13 works from the museum’s own holdings made in the kingdom that ruled Sri Lanka’s central highlands until British annexation in 1815. The show is on view through Feb. 8, 2027, and its opening day coincides with the museum’s Free First Friday, when admission is free to all from 4 to 7 p.m.
The objects — carved ivory sculpture, gem-studded silver and bronze — are mostly small and portable, and may have been commissioned for the royal court or made as offerings by Buddhist devotees, according to the museum. Among the highlights is an 18th-century standing ivory Buddha that the museum says exemplifies the hallmarks of Kandyan sculpture: broad shoulders, a stern expression and stylized drapery. Other works pictured in the museum’s exhibition materials include silver manuscript covers from about 1800, a bronze figure of a Kandyan chief from the 17th or 18th century, an 18th-century sword in a gem-inlaid silver sheath and an ivory fan handle.
Founded in 1469 and re-established in 1592, the kingdom of Kandy remained independent until it was absorbed into British Ceylon in 1815, according to the museum. Though remote in the island’s central hills, its kings formed marriage alliances with South Indian royalty, traded with the Dutch who controlled the coast and kept diplomatic ties with Thai rulers to restore the Buddhist monastic order — exchanges that produced an art blending local motifs with South Indian design and Buddhist with Hindu iconography.
Lakshika Senarath Gamage, the Norton Simon’s assistant curator, who organized the exhibition, said in a statement released by the museum that the show “offers new perspectives on cultural exchange, artistic resilience and the interconnected histories” of South and Southeast Asia. Kandyan artists, she said, drew on local traditions and international exchange to create a distinctive visual language that still resonates today.
Related programs include exhibition tours on Oct. 10 and Dec. 11 and a performance, “Living Traditions of Sri Lankan Dance,” on Nov. 7, according to the museum’s calendar.
The exhibition is drawn from a South and Southeast Asian collection that spans some 2,000 years; the museum houses more than 12,000 objects, roughly 800 of them on view, according to the museum.
The Norton Simon Museum is at 411 W. Colorado Blvd. at Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. It is open Thursday through Monday, noon to 5 p.m., with hours extended to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. General admission is $20; seniors $15; members, students with ID and visitors 18 and under are admitted free. Admission is free to everyone the first Friday of each month from 4 to 7 p.m. Parking is free. More information: https://www.google.com/url?q=
