Cleveland Museum of Art

Carved Brackets

Date

1600s

Medium

Ivory with traces of pigment

Culture

South India, probably Madurai

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Composite creatures with the body of a lion, tusks and trunk of an elephant, and horns of an antelope are standard elements of medieval Indian architecture and furniture. Traces of pigment indicate that these ivory furniture facings were brightly painted. In India ivory has been used to face wooden furniture for more than two thousand years.

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