Female head with headdress
On display
Details
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Title
Female head with headdress
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Associated place
Mathura (place of creation) -
Date
1st half of the 6th century AD
Gupta Period (AD 320 - 600) -
Material and technique
red sandstone
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Material index
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Technique index
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Object type
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Dimensions
16 x 10 x 8.5 cm max. (height x width x depth)
with mount 23.5 x 10 x 8.5 cm max. (height x width x depth) -
No. of items
1
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Credit line
Presented by The Honourable Penelope Chetwode, 1961.
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Museum location
Ground floor | Gallery 12 | India to AD 600 -
Museum department
Eastern Art
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Accession no.
EA1961.138
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Catalogue text
Only the head remains of what was once a complete female figure in very high relief, probably part of a group. The face with its almond-shaped eyes and fleshy lips has the sensual calm, combined with a certain hard-edged quality, of Mathura Buddhas of c.450 A.D. except that the gaze is not downcast, with the consequent exaggeration of the upper lid. The headdress, on the other hand, belongs to the very end of the Gupta period (c.320-550 A.D.) or even the outset of the post-Gupta, as does the right ear-ring, its “bar” already taking the form of a little baluster.
In: Harle, J. C., and Andrew Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1987)
Further reading
Harle, J. C., and Andrew Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1987), no. 30 on p. 23, p. 49, illus. p. 23
Ahuja, Naman, Art and Archaeology of Ancient India: Earliest Times to the Sixth Century (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2018), no. 116
