This “goddess with a white parasol” is a triumphant form of Tara, the deity assisting those who invoke her. She has 1,000 arms, 1,000 heads and 1,000 legs. The arms and hands, holding various ritual implements, radiate around her like wings, enhancing her dynamism. The heads are stacked in a conelike shape; the three larger ones, painted with coloured gouache underlining their lineaments, display a fierce expression, the central one with an open mouth looking particularly aggressive. With her “thousand” white feet the deity tramples two groups of human and animal creatures arranged in two registers: they represent bad incarnations and the goddess sanctions her victory over ignorance by trampling on them. SITATAPATRA rises on a lotus petal plinth, at the centre of which a mountain and a dragon can be seen. The left hand would have held the long staff of a parasol (now lost), a royal symbol of protection. This figure seems to emanate an irresistible force, emphasised by the large aureole of arms laid out in five concentrical rows, and yet the iconographic complexity does not burden it, the long cone with the one thousand heads even adding élan to the statue. The sculpture is composed of six separate pieces: the body, the two groups of creatures under her feet, the plinth—all made in the lost-wax technique—and the two “wings” of arms, made of repoussé copper, fitting into two special mountings on the back. The warm and uniform fire-gilding brings to the fore the superlative quality of the chasing and the tiniest details of this compassionate but strong creature. Images of SITATAPATRA are generally rare, an example comparable with this work is in the State Hermitage Museum and has been published on p. 321 of Wisdom and Compassion. (Renzo Freschi)