Cleveland Museum of Art
Crouching Dwarf Musician
- Date
- 200–100 BCE
- Medium
- terracotta
- Culture
- India, Shunga period (185–78 BCE)
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Images of dwarfs referenced the fertility of the earth. With lush curling hair, portly full body, and visible genitals, this figure squats close to the earth and plays on a double flute pipe instrument. Two holes at the top and bottom of the figure indicate that this object worked as a whistle.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.
Dancing Dwarf
Cleveland Museum of Art
Zoomorphic flute or whistle
Harvard Art Museums
Figure of a Squatting Drummer
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Statuette of Priapus
Getty Museum
Nature Divinity (Yakshi) with Dwarf Hermaphrodite
Cleveland Museum of Art
Imitation of a Statuette of Crouching Aphrodite
Getty Museum
Figure of a Fertility Goddess
Getty Museum
Fragmentary Neolithic seated figurine
Getty Museum
Torso of a Dancing Faun
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Triumph of Galatea
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Woman with a Tambourine
Cleveland Museum of Art
Statuette of an Amazon
Getty Museum