Revealing Krishna (Cleveland Masterwork)

Centered on the early Cambodian masterpiece Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan in the Cleveland Museum of Art, seven essays present new research and discoveries regarding its history, material, and context. Introducing the Cleveland Krishna as one of eight monumental sculptures of Hindu deities from the sacred mountain of Phnom Da, the museum’s curator presents evidence for its establishment in a cave sanctuary and recounts its fascinating journey from there to Cleveland in multiple pieces―including a decades-long detour of being buried in a garden in Belgium. Conservators and scientists elucidate the long-fraught process of identifying the sculptural fragments that belong to the Cleveland Krishna and explain the new reconstructions unveiled in the 2021 exhibition Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain.

An international team of specialists in the history of art, archaeology, and anthropology place the Cleveland Krishna amid the material traces of a sophisticated population based in the Mekong River delta at the ancient metropolis known as Angkor Borei. They reveal the long-lasting influence and prestige of the site, well into the Angkorian period, more than six hundred years after the creation of the Cleveland Krishna and the gods of Phnom Da. This is the fifth in the Cleveland Masterworks Series.

Sonya Rhie Mace is George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, Cleveland Museum of Art Bertrand Porte is sculpture conservator, École française d’Extrême-Orient in Phnom Penh Choulean Ang is professor of Historical Anthropology, Faculty of Archaeology, Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh Pierre Baptiste is curator of Southeast Asian Art, National Museum of Asian Arts, Guimet, Paris Socheat Chea is sculpture conservator, National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh Beth Edelstein is objects conservator, Cleveland Museum of Art Christian Fischer is co-director, UCLA/Getty Conservation Interdepartmental Program, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Los Angeles Colleen Snyder is associate objects conservator, Cleveland Museum of Art Amaris Sturm is Mellon Fellow, Objects Conservation, Cleveland Museum of Art Thierry Zéphir is project manager for Southeast Asia, National Museum of Asian Arts, Guimet, Paris