Vincent Lefevre, Portraiture in Early India, Between Transience and Eternity

As reminded by V. Lefèvre (p. xi), his interest for portraiture grew out of an initial study bearing on artistic sponsorship in South India which led to a survey of portraiture in literary, epigraphic, and artistic sources. The publication under review emerged out of this survey but is neither a comprehensive history of portraiture in South Asia nor a systematically presented handbook bearing on the topic. It is rather an attempt at answering various basic questions that had arisen in the course of the author’s initial and subsequent researches. As a result, this book might rather appear as a collection of essays dealing with aspects that were sparked off by various questions concerning the very existence and nature of portrayal in South Asia before the thriving of portraiture at the courts of Muslim and Rajput rulers (pp. 21–22). The initial interest of the author on the portraiture of sponsors and

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