Royal Female Donor (c. 1500): Art, History and Details

Royal Female Donor (c. 1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Carrying a lamp in one hand, this female figure draped in finery was probably included as the donor of a sculptural group. She wears a complex headdress consisting of a network of beads and plaques joined together, ending in a bell at her forehead and crowning a long cloth that reaches to her waist. Her position on a lotus flower may indicate the transcendent state she attained as a result of the karmic merit of her donation.

Object facts

• Title: Royal Female Donor
• Date: c. 1500
• Culture: Nepal
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 15.4 cm (6 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Nepalese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1978.89

A detail from the museum

The pleated skirt tied with a scarf around her waist is characteristic of Nepal.

Collection credit

Gift from Sarita Hopkins Weeks in Memory of her Mother Sara Sessions Hopkins

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.