Plate with Nandi in Center (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

Plate with Nandi in Center (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Petal-shaped canopies filled with floral designs and birds encircle an image of Nandi, the white bull mount of the Hindu destroyer god Shiva. Together they form a lotus flower. The birds are individualized species, showing the care of the metalworker to depict nature in all its variety and splendor. The fowl include peacocks, parakeets, bluebirds, and possibly even Indian rollers. To make the birds’ wings and the details on Nandi, the artist used thin gold wire to create cells, called cloisons, that could then be filled with colored glass. Some of the red glass has been lost on the outer rim of the plate.

Object facts

• Title: Plate with Nandi in Center
• Date: c. 1800
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Jaipur
• Type: Enamel
• Technique: cloisonné enamel on gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 14.4 cm (5 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1989.352

A detail from the museum

A peacock and peahen inhabit the upper right corner.

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.