Railing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity)

Description

This pillar would have been an upright of a stair banister, probably leading to an upper circumambulatory path of a Buddhist or Jain sacred monument known as a stupa. It has the image of a nature divinity grasping the branch of an ashoka tree with one hand and touching her breast full of nourishing milk with the other. The reverse side of the pillar is decorated with a stupa at the top and a partially damaged scene set in the architectural framework below.

Provenance

(Frank Caro [1904–1980], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1965); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1965–)

Railing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity)

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c. 125–50 CE

Accession Number

1965.250

Medium

red sandstone

Dimensions

Overall: 70.5 x 17.5 cm (27 3/4 x 6 7/8 in.)

Classification

Sculpture

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund