The Indian pantheon is endless in extent, but can be understood equally well as representing different forms of a single divinity. Shiva, Vishnu and other famous gods and goddesses have many different local names, given in all the places where they've appeared. In pictures, they're represented more uniformly, but the artistic styles can vary from region to region, from one era to another.
The Museum of Ethnography owns an unusual collection from South India, probably from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. It consists of 64 pieces of folk-art stained glass, exceptionally skilfully made, representing the Hindu pantheon.
The painters' technique was developed in Europe, brought by the Jesuits to China in the 1700s and came to India from there. The stained glass pieces were principally meant to be installed in the room in which a family carried out their rituals, the puja room.
The collection was donated to the Museum of Ethnography in 1883. In the same year, it had been at the big colonial exhibition in Amsterdam.
The two pieces of stained glass shown here depict two of the god Vishnu's ten incarnations, avatars, his first as Matsya avatar, his fish-shaped incarnation, and his tenth, future incarnation, the white Kalki avatar. He will appear in this form when our present age, Kali Yuga, comes to an end.