{
"data": {
"id": 142284,
"accession_number": "1966.119",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "River Goddess Ganga, c. 700. Northern India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura. Sandstone; overall: 108 cm (42 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1966.119",
"current_location": "243 Indian and Southeast Asian",
"title": "River Goddess Ganga",
"creation_date": "c. 700",
"creation_date_earliest": 590,
"creation_date_latest": 790,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Northern India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura"
],
"technique": "sandstone",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Indian and Southeast Asian Art",
"collection": "Indian Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 108 cm (42 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 1.08,
"height_inch": 42,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"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": 302145,
"title": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture",
"description": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975).",
"opening_date": "1975-09-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"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": "(Robert Rousset [1901\u20131982], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131966",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1966\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The vein of red sandstone visible in the broken top locates the source as a quarry near Mathura.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The Ganges River that runs from the Himalaya Mountains east to the Bay of Bengal is India's most sacred river. Hindu myths tell of how the god Shiva held out a lock of his hair to catch the fall of the heavenly river, identified with the Milky Way, so that it would trickle gently to earth. The river is personified as the goddess Ganga, and since she flows eternally through the hair of Shiva, the river is considered holy. Sculptures of Ganga were placed at the doorway of temples, for the image of the purifying waters symbolically cleanses those who enter the sacred space. She stands on a crocodile-like creature called makara, here shown with a fancifully foliated tail.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60746168"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1966.119-river-goddess-ganga"
]
},
"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. 231",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n255"
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \"Golden Anniversary Acquisitions: September 10 through October 16.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 7 (1966): 181\u2013284.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 254, no. 142; Mentioned: p. 255, no. 142",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152110"
},
{
"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. 231",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n255"
},
{
"citation": "Lerner, Martin. \"Some Unpublished Sculpture from Harshagiri.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 10 (1969): 354-64.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 359. fig. 6",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152300"
},
{
"citation": "Czuma, Stanislaw. \u201cMathura Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum Collection.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 64, no. 3, 1977, pp. 83\u2013114.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 110, fig. 38",
"url": "www.jstor.org/stable/25152680"
},
{
"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. 292",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n312"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1966.119",
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"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 142284,
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"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1966-05-25T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 590,
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"date_text": "c. 700",
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"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Yumna, Goddess of the Yumna River"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-07-03 21:23:02.129000"
}
}