How did a yogini wind up in Minneapolis? In 1926, the archaeologist Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil began shipping sculptures originally belonging to a single yogini temple in Tamil Nadu, India, to a Paris-based art dealer, leaving only a few behind in India. Over the next 29 years, Loo sold at least 12 of these sculptures to many private collectors and museums in America and Europe.

We can identify 19 of the sculptures originally belonging to the temple: 15 goddesses (including Mia’s yogini), two male Hindu gods, and two door guardians placed outside the temple to guard the entrance. The stories of these globe-trotting goddesses are the subject of the book “Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yogini” by Padma Kaimal.

An exhibition in 2014 focusing on Yoga reunited Mia’s Yogini with two of her counterparts in American museum collections for the first time in over 50 years.