Miniature Head of a Bodhisattva (1–100 CE): Art, History and Details

Miniature Head of a Bodhisattva (1–100 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Against the backdrop of the large-scale monumental sculpture for which the Mathura school is noted, this miniature head may appear insignificant. However, it exemplifies on a much reduced scale the qualities of style and execution that parallels developments on monumental sculpture. It also reflects a certain freedom of treatment of facial details that clearly denotes that while the artist worked in a minor key, the creation was neither inconsequential nor a sequacious rendering of the major sculptural trends of large-scale sculptures from Mathura. Although this head is small, a sense of volume and mass is conveyed by the bulky earrings, the protruding flowerlike cockade of the turban, and the reduction of linear detail in defining these ornaments and the facial areas. The unridged brows, the generous curves of the jawline and neck, and the soft modulations of the chin and cheeks belie the diminutiveness of the whole. At the same time, the large almond-shaped eyes and the compressed angularity of the upper lip individualize this pensive Bodhisattva head. The modeling and the turban type with the oversized cockade suggest it dates from the pre-Kaniska phase of the first-century sculptures from Mathura.

Object facts

• Title: Miniature Head of a Bodhisattva
• Date: 1–100 CE
• Culture: India, Mathura, Kushan period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: red Sikri sandstone
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Kushan, Mathura
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1989.345

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Czuma, Stanislaw J., and Rekha Morris. Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1985.
• Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990.

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.