Description
Embodying ancient hopes for well-being, the figure’s broad hips, prominent breasts, and headdress brimming with flowers and fruit communicate fertility and abundance. Such clay images were used for personal devotion; they would have been laid flat, perhaps on a shrine. Their widespread use is attested to by the large numbers that survive. The oldest example of Indian art at the Walters, this figurine is from Mathura in north-central India—one of many cities established along the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers. By the second millennium BCE, the city was an important economic, religious, and cultural center.
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