Plate with a Scene of Revelry (400s CE): Art, History and Details

Plate with a Scene of Revelry (400s CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This rare example of a silver plate from the Gupta period in India depicts the celebration of a spring festival. Figures made during this period are characterized by smooth and rounded body contours and short hairstyles with rows of curls. Though crowded, the masterful composition appears harmoniously unified in its two-tiered circular arrangement of figures.

Object facts

• Title: Plate with a Scene of Revelry
• Date: 400s CE
• Culture: Northwestern India, possibly Tanesara Mahadeva, Gupta period (320-647)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver with alloy of tin and lead with traces of gilding
• Dimensions: Diameter: 18.7 cm (7 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1972.71

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Agrawala, Vasudeva S. Studies in Indian Art. Vol. 1. A history of Indian art from the earliest times up to the third century A.D. Varanasi: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, 1965.
• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1972." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 3 (1973): 63–115.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.