A Guardian of Shiva (1200s): Art, History and Details

A Guardian of Shiva (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Guardians at Shiva temples sometimes appear as a form of the deity himself. Carved in the ornate style favored by kings of the Hoyshala dynasty (1026–1343), this four-armed figure holds a drum that indicates the ongoing passage of time in his upper right hand. In his upper left hand, he holds a staff surmounted by a decomposing head of the god of creation, Brahma. The soft contours of the face, complete with third eye of knowledge, temper his ferocity and create a gently alluring figure.

Object facts

• Title: A Guardian of Shiva
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: Southwestern India, Karnataka
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Chloritic schist
• Dimensions: Overall: 113.3 x 49.2 x 29 cm (44 5/8 x 19 3/8 x 11 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1964.369

A detail from the museum

A three-hooded cobra winds its way up the shaft, while another slithers through the sockets of the skull.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Stechow, Wolfgang. "Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions." Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.