id: 143649 accession number: 1968.104 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1968.104 updated: 2021-08-05 09:00:36.605000 Nature Divinity (Yakshi), c. AD 75. India, Mathura, Kshatrapa period (c. 20 BC-AD 114). Mottled red sandstone; overall: 127.6 x 49 x 25.4 cm (50 1/4 x 19 5/16 x 10 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1968.104 title: Nature Divinity (Yakshi) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. AD 75 creation date earliest: 70 creation date latest: 80 current location: 242A Ancient India creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: India, Mathura, Kshatrapa period (c. 20 BC-AD 114) technique: mottled red sandstone department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art collection: Indian Art - Kushan, Mathura type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 127.6 x 49 x 25.4 cm (50 1/4 x 19 5/16 x 10 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1968 opening date: 1969-01-29T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969). title: Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture opening date: 1975-09-24T04:00:00 Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975). title: Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India opening date: 1985-11-13T05:00:00 Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 13, 1985-January 5, 1986). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (William H. Wolff, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?–1968 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1968– footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: This powerful figure personifies the ideal of the young mother in the form of a nature goddess associated with birth and nourishment. Her iconic stance with the weight equally distributed on both feet indicates that this statue was an object of worship. Her extraordinary headdress, well preserved in the back, and full complement of jewels and ornaments, point to the idea of wealth, which leads to prosperity. wall description: Iconic images of female divinities who personify the life-giving forces of nature were worshipped for fertility, healthy pregnancies, and safe childbirth. Their images were donated by local people and set up in shrines—some under important trees, which the divinity was thought to inhabit in the form of sap. Others, shown with water-serpent hoods, were associated with bodies of water, however small. Traces of carvings that may have been either serpents or locks of hair are visible above this charming figure's elaborate headdress. Nature divinities were so important to local populations that they were incorporated into the sacred complexes of early Buddhist and Jain monuments. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS 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. 230 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n254 “Art of Asia Recently Acquired by American Museums, 1968.” Archives of Asian Art, vol. 23, 1969, pp. 58–87. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 62, fig. 13 url: www.jstor.org/stable/20111014 Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1968." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 1 (1969): 3-50. page number: Mentioned: no. 157, pp. 3 and 50; Reproduced: no. 157, p. 30 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152250 Dwivedi, Vinod P. “Mathura Art in the Museums of the United States of America.” Journal of Indian Museums, 1973, pp. 25–26. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 25–26, fig. 4 url: Czuma, Stanislaw. “Mathura Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 64, no. 3, 1977, pp. 83–114. page number: Reproduced: p. 89, figs. 8 and 9 url: www.jstor.org/stable/25152680 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. 289 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n309 Czuma, Stanislaw J., and Rekha Morris. Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1985. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 26, p. 85 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. page number: Reproduced: p. 15 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1991/page/n30 "A Walking Tour." Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 54 no. 01, January/February 2014. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 33 and 45 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2014-01/page/n31/mode/2up Sengupta, Arputha Rani. Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult: Magic Symbols. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 2019. page number: Reproduced: Vol. 1, P. 107, fig. 2.81; Mentioned: P. 110-111 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.104/1968.104_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.104/1968.104_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.104/1968.104_full.tif