Female Attendants (700s): Art, History and Details

Female Attendants (700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These elegant female figures would have originally been in a portable, wooden shrine with a central ivory depicting the Buddha. One holds a chaurī, or flywhisk, a frequent attribute of attendants, while the one originally on the left holds a lotus. Both display a graceful contraposto (tribhanga). Their rich jewelry contrasts successfully with the softness of their flesh.

Object facts

• Title: Female Attendants
• Date: 700s
• Culture: India, Kashmir
• Type: Ivory
• Technique: ivory
• Dimensions: Overall: 7.5 cm (2 15/16 in.); Base: 2.2 x 2.3 cm (7/8 x 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1972.35

A detail from the museum

Traces of turquoise paint remain on their bodies, suggesting the presence of fabric.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1972." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 3 (March 1973): 63–115.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Czuma, Stanislaw. "A Unique Addition to the School of Kashmiri Ivories." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 8 (1988): 298-319.

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.