Carved Brackets (1600s): Art, History and Details

Carved Brackets (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Composite creatures with the body of a lion, tusks and trunk of an elephant, and horns of an antelope are standard elements of medieval Indian architecture and furniture. Traces of pigment indicate that these ivory furniture facings were brightly painted.

Object facts

• Title: Carved Brackets
• Date: 1600s
• Culture: South India, probably Madurai
• Type: Ivory
• Technique: Ivory with traces of pigment
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.2 cm (4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1972.282

A detail from the museum

In India ivory has been used to face wooden furniture for more than two thousand years.

Collection credit

Bequest of Edgar A. Hahn

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.