The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 13, 2021

Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan

c. 600

This object has related works. See

Southern Cambodia, Takeo Province, Phnom Da

Sandstone

Overall: 203.1 x 68 x 55.5 cm (79 15/16 x 26 3/4 x 21 7/8 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1973.106

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Gold earrings were once fastened to the sculpture using holes in the figure's earlobes.

Description

This masterwork of early Cambodian sculpture shows the Hindu god Krishna effortlessly holding aloft a mountain to protect his fellow villagers and herds from torrential storms sent by a jealous old god. It is one of eight monumental monolithic figures recovered from a two-peaked mountain in the floodplains of the Mekong River delta, on the outskirts of the ancient urban center of Angkor Borei.

Provenance
c. 1910-1920
Léonce Rosenberg [1879–1947], Paris, France
1920-1949
Adolphe Stoclet [1871-1949], Palais Stoclet, Brussels, Belgium
1967-1973
Estate of Michèle Leon-Stoclet
?-1973
(Eugene V. Thaw [1927-2018], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1973-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Sotheby Mak van Waay B.V, Amsterdam. Collection Léonce Rosenberg, Paris, deuxième et dernière partie, Vente Publique. Le Mardi 1 Juin 1920. Lot 214.
Groslier, George. Arts et archéologie Khmers: Revue des recherches sur les arts, les monuments et l'ethnographie du Cambodge depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours. 2, 2. Paris: Sté des éd. géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1924. Mentioned: [no page number], descriptive caption facing Pl. XXX
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. History of Indian and Indonesian Art. New York: E Weyhe, 1927. p. 183
Goloubew, Victor. Documents pour servir à l'étude d'Ajanta; les peintures de la première grotte. Paris et Bruxelles: G. Vanoest, 1927. p. 415
Parmentier, Henri. L'art khmèr primitif. Paris: G. Vanoest, 1927. Mentioned and Reproduced: vol. 1, p. 121 and fig. 84
Fischer, Otto. Die Kunst Indiens, Chinas und Japans. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1928. p. 226
Cuisinier, Jeanne. “Collections of Oriental Art in Belgium,” Indian Art and Letters New Series, Vol II, no. 2. London: The India Society, Second issue for 1928. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 81 and Plate E
De Coral Rémusat, Gilberte. “L'activité Archéologique Dans L'Inde Extérieure.” Revue Des Arts Asiatiques, vol. 10, no. 4, 1936, pp. 211–226. Mentioned: pp. 225-226 www.jstor.org
Cœdès, George. Inscriptions du Cambodge. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1937. Mentioned: Vol. II, p. 156
Visser, H. F. E. Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium. Amsterdam: "De Spieghel" Pub. Co, 1948. Reproduced: pl. 198, no. 338, pp. 76-77, 476-477
Briggs, Lawrence Palmer. The Ancient Khmer Empire. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1951. p. 36
Rowland, Benjamin. The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist, Hindu [and] Jain. [Baltimore]: Penguin Books, 1954. Mentioned and Reproduced: plate 155, p. 227
Dupont, Pierre. La statuaire préangkorienne. Ascona, Suisse: Artibus Asiae, 1955. Mentioned: pp. 40-41; Reproduced: Plate V-A
“The Year in Review for 1973.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 61, no. 2, 1974, pp. 30–79. Reproduced: p. 30; Mentioned: no. 182, p. 31 and 79 www.jstor.org
Czuma, Stanislaw. “A Masterpiece of Early Cambodian Sculpture.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 61, no. 4, 1974, pp. 119–127. Reproduced: pp. 117-127 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 316 archive.org
Schwartzberg, Joseph E., and Shiva G. Bajpai. A Historical Atlas of South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Reproduced: pl. II.D.6 30. Mentioned: p. 185
Pal, Pratapaditya. The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and Its Influence. [New York]: Asia Society in association with J. Weatherhill, 1978. Reproduced: p. 19, fig. 3
Czuma, Stanislaw. "The Case of the Buried Fragments." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Vol. 66, No. 7 (Oct., 1979), pp. 288-295. Mentioned: pp. 288-295; Reproduced: fig. 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10A-D, and back cover
Turner, Evan H. Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. p. 179
Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994. Reproduced: p. 265, fig. 328
Jessup, Helen Ibbitson, and Thierry Zephir. Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1997. Reproduced: fig. 1, p. 160
Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Reproduced: pp. 160-161
Czuma, Stanislaw J. "The Cleveland Museum's Krsna Govardhana and the Early Phnom Da Style of Cambodian Sculpture," Ars Orientalis supplement [Chāchājī; Professor Walter M. Spink Felicitation Volume]. 2000 supplement, pp. 127-135. Reproduced: p. 127, fig. 1; p. 128, fig. 3.
May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Reproduced: no. 102, p. 92; Mentioned: p. 119
Fontein, Jan. Chinese works of art from the Stoclet collection: 25 March-5 April 2003 : exhibition in New York at PaceWildenstein. London: Eskenazi, 2003. Reproduced: fig. 1, p. 6
Jessup, Helen Ibbitson. Art & Architecture of Cambodia. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2004. Reproduced: p. 28, fig. 21; Mentioned: pp. 28-29
Lavy, Paul Andrew. Viṣṇu and Harihara in the Art and Politics of Early Historic Southeast Asia. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2004. Mentioned: p. 228
Czuma, Stanislaw, "Great Acquisitions and Southeast Asian Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art," Orientations, An Issue in Honour of Sherman E. Lee (Jan/Feb 2005), vol. 36, no. 1. Reproduced: p. 82
Czuma, Stanislaw J. "A Quest for the Best: The Enduring Legacy of Sherman E. Lee," Orientations vol. 40, no. 5. Reproduced: p. 37, fig. 3
Dumoulin, Michel. Les Stoclet: microcosme d'ambitions et de passions. Bruxelles: Le Cri, 2011. p. 316
Franklin, David, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Reproduced: pp. 64-65
Guy, John, and Pierre Baptiste. Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia. New York, N.Y.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned: pp. 146-149, cat. no. 72; Reproduced: p. 148
Narayanan, Vasudha. “The Hero at Play: Depictions of the Govardhana-Laia story in Khmer art.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies. Vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 2015), pp. 131-147. Mentioned: pp. 134, 142
Porte, Bertrand. “Sculptures Transformées, Du Phnom Da Au Núi Ba Thê.” Arts Asiatiques, vol. 71, 2016, pp. 141–158. Reproduced: fig. 13 www.jstor.org
Revire, Nicholas. “Dvaravatı and Zhenla in the seventh to eighth centuries: A transregional ritual complex" Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 47(3), pp 393–417. Reproduced: fig. 4.4
Bassoul, Aziz. Splendour of Khmer Iconography: Ancient Cambodian Art of the 5th to the 13th Centuries in Major World Museums and Private Collections. Beirut: Cedar of Lebanon Editions, 2018. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 120-121, no. 53
Coe, Michael D. and Damian Evans. Angkor and the Khmer Civilization. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2018. Reproduced and Mentioned: no. 26, pp. 96, 298
"Cleveland Museum of Art Embarks on Radical Reconstruction of Cambodian Krishna Statue." Western Association for Art Conservation. Newsletter. 40:1 (January 2018): 28. Mentioned: p. 28
Coe, Michael D., and Damian Evans. Angkor and the Khmer Civilization. [New York, NY]: Thames & Hudson, 2018. Reproduced: p. 96, fig. 26
Mace, Sonya Rhie. "Restorations and Reconstructions: Cambodian Art to and from Cleveland." Arts of Asia 48, no. 3 (May-June 2018): 57-67. Reproduced: p. 57, fig. 1
Exhibition history

Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).

Source URL: https://web-collection-prod.clevelandart.org/art/1973.106