This remarkable figurine of the Child Jesus as the Good Shepherd, carved in ivory in Portuguese ruled Ceylon, is a rare testimony to the development of this iconography in Asia. Likely devised in Ceilão—as the Portuguese called it—at the turn of the seventeenth century and further elaborated in Goa, the seat of the Portuguese Sate of India, the iconography of the Good Shepherd bridges European and Asian religious traditions, merging Buddhist imagery (the sleeping and meditative Buddha) with Hindu iconography (Krishna Gopala, the cowherd). From South Asia, it extended into other regions of Asia under European influence. Its imagery alludes to the evangelical episode of the Good Shepherd, the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14; Luke 15:1-7).

Composed of several pieces of ivory, the sculpture depicts the Good Shepherd seated upon a stylised human heart pierced by arrows (some now missing), raised on a locally derived, squared, tiered, moulded pedestal—known in Sanskrit as pīṭha (literally ‘seat’). A small hole at the top of the Child’s head suggests that the figurine was once adorned with a metal halo, likely of silver. The meditative figure of the Child Jesus, with protruding curls of hair reminiscent of local Sri Lankan devotional images of the Buddha and half-closed almond-shaped eyes, rests his head on the palm of his right hand. He wears sandals and a knee-length shepherd’s tunic with ball-shaped fleece curls, fastened at the wais with a knotted belt from which hangs a gourd-shaped bottle. With his left hand, the Child Jesus caresses a crouching sheep resting on his left knee, while another perches on his left shoulder.

This figurine’s iconography corresponds to one of the earliest stages in the development of the Good Shepherd type, exemplified by the rock-crystal figure now in the Wallace Collection, London, whose original form is known from a seventeenth-century engraving.[1] As with the present example, the Wallace Good Shepherd sits cross-legged and once rested upon a heart pierced with arrows, raised on a stepped pedestal. The most complete version of this stage in the development of the Good Shepherd iconography—retaining much of its original polychromy and gilding, and housed in a contemporary Portuguese portable oratory—belongs to a private Portuguese collection.[2] Apart from its preserved polychromy, it differs little from the present sculpture, both in iconography and in the high quality of its carving.

[1] Hugo Miguel Crespo, An Altar Tabernacle on the Life of the Child Jesus. Religious Ivories from Portuguese Ceylon, Lisbon, São Roque Antiguidades & Galeria de Arte, 2024, pp. 59-61.

[2] Crespo, An Altar Tabernacle, pp. 42-45, fig. 18.