Head of Shiva (1100s): Art, History and Details

Head of Shiva (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Khmer patrons and artists produced works of art that could depict either a deified king or a god who has royal attributes. The Khmer cult of the god-king allowed for such fluidity of interpretation. Presence of a third eye in the forehead and matted locks of hair are attributes both of the Hindu god Shiva and the followers who emulated him in order to get closer to him.

Object facts

• Title: Head of Shiva
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Cambodia, Angkor, 12th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: sandstone
• Dimensions: with base: 42 cm (16 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Cambodian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1940.53

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. "A Cambodian Head." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 1 (January 1941): 4–5.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.