Indian Door Lintel with Central Bird Medallion

A bird holds the center while everything else curls toward it.

This carved teak door lintel comes from the border of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa in India and dates to the late 18th or early 19th century. Lintels crowned the doorways of South Asian homes and temples, where carved ornament marked the threshold and, many believed, welcomed good fortune inside. A standing bird fills a beaded roundel at the middle. Scrolling vines and two large rosettes spread to either side, and a braided border frames the whole panel. Forty-three and a half inches wide and thirteen high.

Few birds have kept one position so long.