Cleveland Museum of Art

Heraldic Lion

Date

900s

Medium

Beige sandstone

Culture

Vietnam (Champa)

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cham adopted Indian Buddhist and Hindu religious systems, languages, and the practice of building stone temples and monasteries. The lion, which is ubiquitous on Indian monuments, was also incorporated as a protector at Cham sacred sites. In Champa, however, the roaring and rearing lion imagery is semihuman and distinctively aggressive and extroverted. This powerful figure rearing in a combative pose was formerly in the renowned Pan-Asian Collection of Southeast Asian art assembled during the 1960s and 1970s by one major collector, Christian Humann of the renowned Rothschild banking family. The Champa kingdom occupied the central and south regions of present-day Vietnam. It was a powerful rival of the Khmer in Cambodia and the Viet of northern Vietnam.

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