Elephant bracket
Man Mandir Palace
Gwalior
At Gwalior, too, I noted a treatment of the elephant in a carved stone bracket in the old palace of Man Mandir, which in structure recalled the wondrous columns of the temple at Steerungum at Trichinopoly in the south, though in the latter case the subject is mainly the horseman, but the resemblance is in the arrangement which seems characteristic of Indian (Hindu) carving. At the Guest House, Gwalior, also, elephants' heads were treated ingeniously as the corbels supporting balconies. It was modern work, but evidently influenced by the carvings in the old palace above mentioned. There was an abundance of floral carving and geometric pierced work in this Guest House, besides, extremely skilful and beautiful in detail, showing that the modern Hindu architectural carver had by no means lost his cunning. This, of course, was a native state.
Elephant corbels
Guest House
Gwalior
One almost wonders that golden images of favourite race-horses are not set up in—well, some of our public places, for it cannot be said that there is no animal worship in our own country, though the votive offerings in art usually take the form of sporting prints, or paintings of fat stock with straight backs and short horns.
ELEPHANT CORBELS,
GUEST HOUSE, GWALIOR.