id: 141487 accession number: 1964.96 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.96 updated: 2020-06-01 09:01:28.037000 Woman and Water Buffalo Rhyton, 500-700. Sasanian, Iran, 600s or Turk Shahi dynasty, Kabul, Afghanistan, 500s. Silver, with mercury gilding and glass inlays; overall: 19.1 cm (7 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1964.96 title: Woman and Water Buffalo Rhyton title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 500-700 creation date earliest: 500 creation date latest: 700 current location: 102A Ancient Near East creditline: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund copyright: --- culture: Sasanian, Iran, 600s or Turk Shahi dynasty, Kabul, Afghanistan, 500s technique: silver, with mercury gilding and glass inlays department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art collection: Near Eastern Art type: Metalwork find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 19.1 cm (7 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: ?? 50 ZWZN 3 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions opening date: 1966-09-10T04:00:00 Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966). title: Consuming Passions: The Art of Food and Drink opening date: 1983-07-26T04:00:00 Consuming Passions: The Art of Food and Drink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 26-October 9, 1983). title: All That Glitters: Great Silver Vessels in Cleveland's Collection opening date: 1994-11-23T05:00:00 All That Glitters: Great Silver Vessels in Cleveland's Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 23, 1994-January 8, 1995). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Dr. Elie Borowski, Toronto, Ontario, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: ?-1964 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1964- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Inlays once filled the buffalo eye sockets, perhaps of colored glass like that still present within some petals of the disc-shaped earrings. digital description: Recalling both Greek and Iranian traditions of head vases and rhyta (drinking horns), this unusual silver vessel combines the heads of a woman and a water buffalo. A filling hole on top and a pouring or drinking spout in front make clear its function. An inscription in Middle Persian on its back records its weight: probably 50 staters and three drachmae (close to its current weight of just over 700 grams, or about 1-1/2 pounds). The woman’s flat brow, straight nose, and widely set, heavy-lidded eyes—along with the sectarian mark in gold on her forehead—relate to art of the Indus River Valley and Hindu Kush regions of today’s Pakistan and Afghanistan. While we do not know for sure, numerous scholars have suggested that she may depict the Indian warrior goddess Durga, slayer of the buffalo demon. wall description: Because the woman's widely set, heavy-lidded eyes suggest Indian facial types, she may well represent a Sasanian goddess who was associated with the cult of the Indian god Shiva. Known in India as Durga, Shiva's wife, and in Iran as Nana, she decapitated a demon who appeared in buffalo form. This was found crushed flat in tombs; its reconstruction took many months to complete. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS 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. 14 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n38 Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: https://archive.org/details/cmapr1432 Stechow, Wolfgang. "Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions." Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64.
Published as: The Goddess Dravspa
 page number: Reproduced: p. 35; Mentioned p. 63 url: 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. 14 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n36 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. 6 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n26 Harper, Prudence Oliver. The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire. New York: Asia Society, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 68; mentioned: pl. 23, pp. 69-71 url: Neils, Jenifer. “The Twain Shall Meet.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 72, no. 6, 1985, pp. 326–359. page number: Reproduced: p. 340, fig. 27 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25159914 Châtelet, Albert, and Bernard Philippe Groslier. Histoire de l'art: peinture, sculpture, architecture, arts décoratifs. [Paris]: Larousse, 1998. page number: p. 611 url: Sugimura, Tō. Sekai bijutsu daizenshū = New history of world art. tōyō(17), tōyō(17). 1999. page number: p. 155, fig. 171 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. page number: pp. 60-1 url: Minardi, Michele. 2015. "A Silver Rhyton from Afghanistan Held in the Cleveland Museum of Art and Its Historical Context," Journal asiatique 303.1: 59-86. page number: url: Kosmin, Paul. "Banqueting on the Move." In Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World: Feasting with Gods, Heroes, and Kings.Susanne Ebbinghaus,ed., 310-341. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums, 2018. page number: Mentioned & reproduced: p. 333, fig. 7.25 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.96/1964.96_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.96/1964.96_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.96/1964.96_full.tif