Earring with Four-Armed Vishnu Riding Garuda with Nagas (serpent divinities) (1600s or 1700s): Art, History and Details

Earring with Four-Armed Vishnu Riding Garuda with Nagas (serpent divinities) (1600s or 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In Nepal, sculptures of deities were adorned with jewelry larger than pieces made for human beings. This pair of earrings features the Hindu god Vishnu seated cross-legged riding his mount the man-eagle Garuda. Garuda's arms are outstretched, grabbing the tails of serpents whose braided bodies snake up both sides of each earring. His wings drape like a cape behind him, and his talons clutch his crescent moon perch. Serpent hoods rise up behind Vishnu like a canopy.

Object facts

• Title: Earring with Four-Armed Vishnu Riding Garuda with Nagas (serpent divinities)
• Date: 1600s or 1700s
• Culture: Nepal, Kathmandu Valley
• Type: Jewelry
• Technique: repousse gold with pearls
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.6 cm (1 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Nepalese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1915.346.1

A detail from the museum

Vishnu and Garuda are solar deities, and they sit on the crescent moon, so the light of both celestial bodies shines from these earrings.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

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.