Kali and Jagaddhatri

This double image, created by printing two metal plates on a single sheet of paper, is one of the pioneering styles of Kolkata printmaking. It is referred to as a Battala print, after the neighborhood in north Kolkata where many local presses were established in the early to mid-nineteenth century. At left is the goddess Kali; she stands on the prone figure of Shiva and wields a sacrificial blade in her raised hand. At right is Jagadhatri, “She Who Supports the World,” seated on a lion. Jagadhatri is a form of the supreme protective deity Durga, shown as a beautiful young woman. Both goddesses are framed by Victorian-style cusped arches supported on slender openwork pillars with ionic capitals, evocative of the cast-iron architectural decor that was a feature of British Kolkata.