The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Mother Goddess

Mother Goddess

c. 600
schist
Overall: 79.4 x 23.2 cm (31 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1970.12
Location: 243 Indian and Southeast Asian

Did You Know?

This sculpture was one of twelve that were brought to a modern temple known as the Tanesar (Thaneshvara) Mahadeva Temple.

Description

Sets of mother goddesses were installed in shrines near the entrance to Hindu temples. From one of the most naturalistic and charming sets, this mother attentively grasps the wrist of her toddler to gently guide him, while smiling lovingly and patiently at him. The simplicity of garments and ornament is characteristic of sculpture of the sixth century, and the naturalistic qualities of this work from northwestern India suggest connections with the Greco-Roman styles of Gandhara, in present-day Pakistan.
  • 1968–1970
    (Doris and Ed Wiener, New York, NY
    1970–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Agrawala, R. C. “Some More Unpublished Sculptures from Rajasthan.” Lalit Kala, No. 10 (October 1961). Mentioned and Reproduced: fig. 14
    Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1970." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 2 (1971): 22-71. Mentioned: p. 71, no. 165 www.jstor.org
    Pal, Pratapaditya. “Some Rajasthani Sculptures of the Gupta Period”, Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, Oberlin College (Winter 1971), pp. 105-118.
    Harle, J. C. Gupta Sculpture: Indian Sculpture of the Fourth to the Sixth Centuries A.D. Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press, 1974. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 26, pl. 91, p. 49
    Czuma, Stanislaw. “Mathura Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 64, no. 3, 1977, pp. 83–114. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 111, fig. 42 25152680
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 292 archive.org
    Schastok, Sara L. The Śāmalājī Sculptures and 6th Century Art in Western India. Leiden: Brill, 1985. Mentioned: p. 83; Reproduced: fig. 56, plate XXXIII
    Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Reproduced: pp. 134-135
    Czuma, Stanislaw, "Great Acquisitions and Southeast Asian Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art," Orientations, An Issue in Honour of Sherman E. Lee (Jan/Feb 2005), vol. 36, no. 1. Reproduced: p. 84
    Franklin, David and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Reproduced: pp. 62-63
    Liebert, Emily, Nadiah Rivera Fellah, and William Griswold. Picturing Motherhood Now. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2021. Mentioned & Reproduced: pp. 10–11, fig. 2
  • Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).
    Year in Review: 1970. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-March 7, 1971).
  • {{cite web|title=Mother Goddess|url=false|author=|year=c. 600|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1970.12