Colossal Head of a Deva (c. 1200): Art, History and Details

Colossal Head of a Deva (c. 1200) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This head is from one of the gods (devas in Sanskrit) who, according to Hindu myth, churned the primordial Ocean of Milk to extract the nectar of immortality. Using a mountain as a churning rod and a serpent as the rope, the gods on one side and the demons on the other vied to win the nectar. The gods prevailed and achieved immortality.

Object facts

• Title: Colossal Head of a Deva
• Date: c. 1200
• Culture: Cambodia, Angkor, Preah Khan
• Type: Stone
• Technique: sandstone
• Dimensions: Overall: 71.3 x 50 x 47 cm (28 1/16 x 19 11/16 x 18 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Cambodian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2011.147

A detail from the museum

The deity’s conical tiara consists of a diadem with floral decoration and is topped by a five-tiered lotus narrowing upward.

Collection credit

Gift of Maxeen and John Flower in honor of Dr. Stanislaw Czuma

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's, New York. Indian & Southeast Asian Art. 26 March 2003. Lot 28.
• Mann, C. Griffith, and Amy Bracken Sparks. "Acquisitions 2011." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 52, no. 2 (March/April 2012): 10–27.

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.