Joseph Lindon Smith

It was Denman W. Ross, a professor of Fine Arts at Harvard, who first traveled with Joseph Lindon Smith to see the famous temples and palaces of Angkor, capital of the ancient Khmer empire in in Cambodia. Before making a second trip with his daughter Rebecca in 1922, Smith ananged with L. Earle Rowe, director of the RISD Museum, to paint a Cambodian picture for RISD.

The Smiths sailed to Saigon, where they boarded a smaller boat that took them up the Mekong River to the village of Siem Reap. They crossed the tropical jungle on elephants, finally reaching a French colonial outpost where they caught their first glimpse of towers of Angkor Wat, the vast 12th-century temple complex, rising above the trees. After their return, RISD purchased a second Cambodian painting by Joseph Lindon Smith and another by Rebecca.

This relief depicts the figure of an Asparas, a dancing spirit who often performed for the gods in Hindu mythology.