{
"data": {
"id": 140437,
"accession_number": "1964.369",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "A Guardian of Shiva, 1200s. Southwestern India, Karnataka. Chloritic schist; overall: 113.3 x 49.2 x 29 cm (44 5/8 x 19 3/8 x 11 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1964.369",
"current_location": "244 Indian and Southeast Asian",
"title": "A Guardian of Shiva",
"creation_date": "1200s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1200,
"creation_date_latest": 1299,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Southwestern India, Karnataka"
],
"technique": "Chloritic schist",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Indian and Southeast Asian Art",
"collection": "Indian Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 113.3 x 49.2 x 29 cm (44 5/8 x 19 3/8 x 11 7/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 1.133,
"width": 0.492,
"depth": 0.29
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 300917,
"title": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions",
"description": "Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).",
"opening_date": "1966-09-10T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 219866,
"title": "Yoga: The Art of Transformation",
"description": "Yoga: The Art of Transformation. National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (October 19, 2013-January 26, 2014); Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (February 21-May 25, 2014); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 22-September 7, 2014).",
"opening_date": "2013-10-19T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 292699,
"title": "Artlens Exhibition 2017",
"description": "Artlens Exhibition 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24, 2017-May 29, 2019).",
"opening_date": "2017-06-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 676976,
"title": "Reinstallation of \u201cKrishna Lifting Mount Govardhan\u201d",
"description": "Reinstallation of \u201cKrishna Lifting Mount Govardhan\u201d. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 12, 2024-November 2, 2025).",
"opening_date": "2024-10-12T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(William H. Wolff [1906\u20131991], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?\u20131964",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1964\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "A three-hooded cobra winds its way up the shaft, while another slithers through the sockets of the skull.",
"description": "Guardians at Shiva temples sometimes appear as a form of the deity himself. Carved in the ornate style favored by kings of the Hoyshala dynasty (1026\u20131343), this four-armed figure holds a drum that indicates the ongoing passage of time in his upper right hand. In his upper left hand, he holds a staff surmounted by a decomposing head of the god of creation, Brahma. The soft contours of the face, complete with third eye of knowledge, temper his ferocity and create a gently alluring figure.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60762597"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1964.369-a-guardian-of-shiva"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 236",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n260"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cGolden Anniversary Acquisition,\u201d 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr1421"
},
{
"citation": "Stechow, Wolfgang. \"Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions.\" Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 31, mentioned p. 64",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 236",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n260"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 300",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n320"
},
{
"citation": "Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. NY: Columbia University Press, 2002.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 212, fig. 12",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: fig. 12",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Diamond, Debra, and Molly Emma Aitken. Yoga: The Art of Transformation. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2013.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 1B, pp. 108\u2013109",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 209",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Larson, Kay. \"Yoga: The Art of Transformation.\" Curator: The Museum Journal 57, no. 3 (July 2014): 363\u2013373.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 367, photo 4",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.369",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.369/1964.369_web.jpg",
"width": "517",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "306306",
"filename": "1964.369_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.369/1964.369_print.jpg",
"width": "1970",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "4262279",
"filename": "1964.369_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.369/1964.369_full.tif",
"width": "2897",
"height": "5000",
"filesize": "43478084",
"filename": "1964.369_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"date_created": "2006-06-08T16:49:39",
"annotation": "",
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/1964.369/1964.369_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "491",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "281865"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/1964.369/1964.369_alt0_print.jpg",
"width": "1869",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "4005651"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/alternate/1964.369/1964.369_alt0_full.tif",
"width": "2749",
"height": "5000",
"filesize": "41259404"
}
}
],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Nancy F. & Joseph P. Keithley Gallery",
"athena_id": 140437,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1964-10-31T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1200,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1200s",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"A Guardian of \u015aiva"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:09:22.974000"
}
}