Earring with Vishnu Riding Garuda (1600s or 1700s): Art, History and Details

Earring with Vishnu Riding Garuda (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:

This earring was made to hang on sculptures of deities worshipped in Nepalese temples. Nepalese craftsmen excelled at the detailed encrustation of jewels to depict complex figural imagery. They shaped gold wires into a framework, then inserted polished stones into the spaces, held in place with an adhesive. Four-armed Vishnu is made of sapphires; his mount the man-eagle appears to be made of carnelian and spinel with wings of turquoise.

Object facts

• Title: Earring with Vishnu Riding Garuda
• Date: 1600s or 1700s
• Culture: Nepal, Kathmandu Valley
• Type: Jewelry
• Technique: Gold set with precious and semiprecious stones
• Dimensions: Overall: 2.5 cm (1 in.)
• Collection: Nepalese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1915.342.2

A detail from the museum

Jeptha Homer Wade II and his wife bought this and other jewelry and textiles on a trip to India.

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.