Cleveland Museum of Art
Gateway Bracket
- Date
- 150–200 CE
- Medium
- sandstone
- Culture
- India, Mathura, Kushan period
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 145942
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Gateways leading into a sacred area often had large horizontal architraves, the weight of which was supported by brackets carved with figures of voluptuous women grasping the branch of a tree. They embody the ideal form of the young mother, with breasts full of nourishing milk. As personifications of the sap that pervades living plants, they are auspicious markers of life and abundance. These attractive figures, who embody the purifying water essential for life, symbolically cleanse visitors as they enter the sacred space. On both sides of this large bracket they grasp the branch of an ashoka tree, which has clusters of flowers that are bright red in nature.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Provenance
- ?–1971: (William H. Wolff [1906-1991], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1971–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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