Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Devi, probably Uma
Not on view
This devi is two-armed and has a distinctive coiffure, alluding to Shiva’s long dreadlocks. She has the full figure of a mature woman, and her compelling humanism is suggestive of portraiture. Inscriptions from the seventh and early eighth centuries mention several queens (rajni) who reigned in this pre-Angkorian period; one, dated 803, records a four-generation local dynasty at Sambhupura, of which the last three rulers were queens directly descended from one another. This sculpture and cat. no. 94 may have served simultaneously as images of the goddess Uma and of a deified queen, likely the mother of the patron.
cat. no. 95
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
