The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Knotted hemp rope in green colors with rippling, bumpy edges like a woven rug and reminiscent of a cobra hood, a brown-green strip extending down and piling on the floor before lifting up into an elongated neck from which stick out rib-like protrusions. Dark green knotted hemp rope flares on either side from behind the cobra hood.

Serpent Deity (Nag Devta I)

1979

Mrinalini Mukherjee

(Indian, 1949–2015)
India
Undyed and dyed hemp rope and fibers; cotton; steel
Overall: 114.3 x 83.8 x 129.5 cm (45 x 33 x 51 in.)
Gift of Phyllis Granoff 2016.544
© Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Mrinalini Mukherjee often worked intuitively to create her hemp textile pieces, without sketches, models, or preparatory drawings.

Description

Mrinalini Mukherjee's array of organic abstract forms evokes human and animal bodies as well as vegetation. Mostly made of knotted hemp fiber, a material and technique traditionally used by village women in rural India, this contemporary sculpture references the serpent deities that have been revered in southern Asia for thousands of years.
  • 1979
    Mrinalini Mukherjee [1949-2015], New Delhi, India, to Phyllis Granoff
    1979–2016
    Phyllis Granoff [b. 1947], New Haven, CT, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2016–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Mukherjee, Mrinalini, David Elliott, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jagdish Swaminathan, and Chrissie Iles. Mrinalini Mukherjee: Sculpture. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art Oxford, 1994. p. 12
    Ella Datta, Art India, Vol. XI, Issue IV, Quarter IV, 2006, p. 214. p. 214
    Murtaza Vali, “Mrinalini Mukherjee, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi,” Artforum (Summer 2015), 349–50.
    Mukherjee, Mrinalini, and Shanay Jhaveri. Mrinalini Mukherjee. Mumbai, India: The Shoestring Publisher, 2019.
    "New Take on the New: A comprehensive reinstallation of the galleries of contemporary art offers fresh viewpoints on the art of our time.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 2 (Spring 2021): Cover, 4-9. Reproduced: P. 5; Mentioned: P. 4.
    “New Take on the New: A comprehensive reinstallation of the galleries of contemporary art offers fresh viewpoints on the art of our time." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 4-9. Reproduced: P. 5; Mentioned: P. 4.
  • Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).
  • {{cite web|title=Serpent Deity (Nag Devta I)|url=false|author=Mrinalini Mukherjee|year=1979|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2016.544