The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Grey-brown, coarse textured sandstone sculpture of the god Vishnu, broken off just below the waist, from the left shoulder, and the right arm just below the elbow, from where two arms would branch. Vishnu wears a cylindrical cap, has elongated ears, and smiles faintly. Finely carved lines indicate wrapped cloth around the waist, below the god's slim bare chest and broad shoulders.

Vishnu

650–700

Cambodia

sandstone
Overall: 49.9 cm (19 5/8 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1942.563
Location: 243 Indian and Southeast Asian

Did You Know?

The deity is four-armed with the arms running parallel from the shoulders and then bifurcating at the elbows.

Description

Vishnu has the features of royalty, indicated by the high mitre-like crown with the flat top, distinctive to types made at the site of Prasat Andet. His status as a god, greater than any earthly king, is indicated by the four arms, traces of which are still visible. The sensitive rendering of the eyes and slight smile are characteristics of Cambodian sculpture, and during this early period, the form of the body reveals some relatively naturalistic musculature and treatment of the garments. He wears the Southeast Asian lower garment called sampot, around which his upper garment is loosely tied. It is Vishnu who incarnates himself into the world in avatars, including Krishna and the boar Varaha. Here we see his iconic form as Vishnu himself.
  • Neumann Collection, Saigon, Indo-China
    ?–1942
    (Hernán Larraín Peró [1899–1994], Buenos Aires, Argentina, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1942–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Hollis, Howard. "Two Pre-Khmer Statues of Vishnu." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 10 (December 1942): 164–166. Mentioned: p. 164; Reproduced: p. 171 www.jstor.org
  • Reinstallation of “Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan”. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 12, 2024-November 2, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=Vishnu|url=false|author=|year=650–700|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1942.563