# Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan > Unrecorded sculptor of Phnom Da, Angkor Borei - c. 600 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-phnom-da-sculptor/krishna-lifting-mount-govardhan-phnom-da/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-24 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unrecorded sculptor of Phnom Da, Angkor Borei - **Date:** c. 600 - **Medium:** Sandstone - **Dimensions:** Overall 203.1 x 68 x 55.5 cm. Torso (1973.106.a) 143.5 x 66 x 50.2 cm; upper stele with hand (1973.106.b) 104.8 x 69.2 x 10.8 cm. The body and upper section together weigh about 830 pounds - **Object type:** Sculpture - **Period:** Pre-Angkorian Khmer, about 600 - **Current location:** Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio - **Attribution:** workshop ## Summary A larger than life sandstone Krishna carved about 600 for a man-made cave on the mountain of Phnom Da in southern Cambodia, cut down on site in the early 1900s to be reused as the armature of a Buddha, sold in Paris in 1920 by the Cubist dealer Leonce Rosenberg to Adolphe Stoclet, and displayed in the music hall of the Palais Stoclet in Brussels for nearly fifty years under the name the dancing prince.Fragments dug up at Phnom Da in 1935 were shipped to Brussels, failed to fit, and were thrown into a neighbour's garden, where they held up a water cistern and edged a flower bed until a Cleveland curator recognised the pleats of a Phnom Da sampot carved into a thigh in 1977. Cleveland used eight of them to build a nearly complete figure in 1978 and sent nine to Phnom Penh in 2005, where six were attached to a different Krishna.Almost all of that was wrong. Between 2014 and 2018 conservators in Cambodia, France and Ohio established by three-dimensional scanning and petrography that six pieces in Cleveland belonged to the Phnom Penh statue and two pieces in Phnom Penh belonged to the Cleveland one. Cambodia transferred a hand, strut and panel to Cleveland in 2015; Cleveland took its own 1978 restoration apart; and both sculptures now stand with fewer limbs and the right ones. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 600-c. 1300** Sanctuary on Phnom Da, Takeo province `[documented]` (cult use) Carved about 600 for a sanctuary on Phnom Da, one of eight monumental Hindu figures at the earliest monumental Hindu temple complex recorded in Cambodia, whose foundation inscriptions date to the reign of Rudravarman, 514 to 539. Surviving evidence indicates active worship for about seven hundred years. - **c. 1300-c. 1910** None; the site abandoned `[documented]` (destruction and abandonment) Around 1300, when Thai forces took southern Cambodia, the eight sculptures were toppled from their pedestals, most probably to reach the consecration gold and gems set beneath them. The site was largely abandoned; a French civil servant visited the caves in the 1880s. In the first decade of the 1900s a Buddhist community from Vietnam settled at the site and reused the temples and broken sculpture. - **c. 1910-1920** Removed from Cambodia; Leonce Rosenberg, Paris `[disputed]` (removal and dealer stock) Henri Parmentier of the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient recorded his visit in June 1911; the report published that year indicates the head and body section had been taken to France the previous year. Before removal the torso was already being cut down for use as a body armature for a new seated Buddha. Who removed it, and under what colonial authority, is not documented. The Cleveland Museum of Art's own list places Leonce Rosenberg in Paris from about 1910 to 1920 as the first named holder. - **1920-1949** Adolphe Stoclet (1871-1949) and Suzanne Stoclet, Palais Stoclet, Brussels `[documented]` (purchase) Bought from Leonce Rosenberg in 1920 and displayed on a stage in the music hall of the Palais Stoclet, where the couple called it their dancing prince. Published soon after purchase and praised internationally by the late 1920s. In 1935 Henri Mauger of the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient found further fragments at Phnom Da; they were shipped to Brussels on the belief that they completed this figure, and after failed attempts by the sculptor Marcel Wolfers to attach them they were abandoned in his garden. - **1949-1967** Michele Leon-Stoclet (1932-1967), Brussels and Barcelona `[documented]` (inheritance) Inherited from her grandparents. Her sudden death in 1967 put the sculpture on the market. Sherman E. Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, worked for eight years to secure it. - **1967-1973** The Stoclet estate `[documented]` (estate) The museum bought the head and torso section from the Stoclet estate in 1973 through the John L. Severance Fund. No purchase price has been published and there was no auction. - **1973-present** The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio `[documented]` (purchase) Seventeen fragments were recovered from the Wolfers garden in Brussels by the curator Stanislaw Czuma and sent to Cleveland in 1977; eight were attached in 1978-79. Nine unused fragments were transferred to the National Museum of Cambodia in 2005 and further fragments in 2020. On 30 October 2015 the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia authorised the transfer to Cleveland of a fragment comprising a hand, strut and supporting panel, after petrographic analysis matched it to this sculpture. The legal form of that transfer, whether gift, loan or exchange, has not been published. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This sculpture has been sold twice and neither sale was at auction, so no hammer price and no buyer's premium exist for it. The 1920 sale from Leonce Rosenberg to Adolphe Stoclet was a private dealer transaction and no price has been published. The 1973 purchase from the Stoclet estate by the Cleveland Museum of Art was likewise private and the figure has not been published. Sources describing the sculpture as arriving on the European auction block in 1920 conflict with the accounts naming Rosenberg as the seller in a private sale; this record follows the museum's own provenance list and the Art Newspaper account, and records the conflict rather than choosing. ## Exhibitions - Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain, Cleveland Museum of Art, 14 November 2021 to 30 January 2022, 2021-2022 - Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain (a different version, focused on this sculpture), Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, 30 April to 18 September 2022, 2022 ## Literature - 2021, Sonya Rhie Mace, 'The Cleveland Krishna', Cleveland Art, Fall 2021. - 2021, Beth Edelstein, 'Conserving Krishna', Cleveland Art, Fall 2021. - 2021, Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art, containing the conservators' account of the 1978-79 joining method. Cited here from secondary reporting; not read. ## Open questions - What is the legal form of the 2015 transfer from Phnom Penh to Cleveland? The press release says the Ministry authorised the transfer and does not say whether title passed, and the cultural cooperation agreement it operates under has not been published. - How many fragments were found at Phnom Da in 1935, and how many reached Brussels? The museum counts seventeen belonging to four sculptures arriving in 1937; a published account of the excavation gives fourteen found in 1935. The discrepancy has not been resolved in print. - Who removed the head and torso from Phnom Da about 1910, and under what colonial authority? The 1911 report records the removal after the fact. No export permit has been published. - What did the Cleveland Museum of Art pay the Stoclet estate in 1973, and what did Adolphe Stoclet pay Leonce Rosenberg in 1920? Neither figure has been published, and neither sale was at auction. - The museum's provenance list carries non-consecutive sequence numbers, which implies unpublished entries between Rosenberg and Stoclet and between Michele Leon-Stoclet and the museum. Who are they? - Where are the remaining pieces of the seventeen? Five belong to the Cleveland Krishna and the rest went to Phnom Penh in 2005 and 2020; a piece-by-piece account of the final disposition has not been published. - Did the 1978-79 drilling destroy break surfaces that would have answered the fragment question earlier? New holes were drilled in ancient stone and filled with steel and epoxy. ## Sources - [1] Cleveland Museum of Art, collection record 1973.106, Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan. Tombstone, measurements, credit line and the museum's provenance list naming Leonce Rosenberg, Adolphe Stoclet and Michele Leon-Stoclet. - [2] Sonya Rhie Mace, 'The Cleveland Krishna', Cleveland Art, Fall 2021, published 1 December 2021. The curator's own account of the myth, the site, the toppling around 1300, the 1911 report, the 1920 auction purchase, the 1937 shipment of seventeen fragments, the cistern and the flower bed, and Sherman Lee's eight-year pursuit. - [3] Beth Edelstein, 'Conserving Krishna', Cleveland Art, Fall 2021, published 2 December 2021. The conservator's account of the seven-year project, the removal of the 1978 epoxy, brass and steel, the 830 pounds, the reversible mount and the collaborating institutions. - [4] Cleveland Museum of Art press release, 30 October 2015, 'Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Cleveland Museum of Art Announce the Transfer from Phnom Penh to Cleveland of an Important Fragment'. The petrographic match, the 2005 transfer of nine pieces, and the statements of Kong Vireak and William Griswold. - [5] Nancy Kenney, 'Ancient Krishnas are reunited with their body parts', The Art Newspaper, 12 November 2021. The 1920 Rosenberg sale, the dancing prince, Czuma's recognition of the sampot pleats, the 1978-79 joining method, and the removal of a thigh, two calves and the feet. - [6] 'Krishna Govardhana: A Journey to Cambodia', Asian Art Newspaper, 26 November 2021. Rudravarman's dates, the 1880s and June 1911 visits, Henri Mauger's 1935 find of fourteen fragments, Marcel Wolfers, the 1944 removal of the Phnom Penh Krishna, and the Porte and Sok Soda reassessment of 2014 to 2018. - [7] Cleveland Museum of Art, exhibition page for Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain, 14 November 2021 to 30 January 2022, including the cave-temple reconstruction, the eight three-dimensional models and the Washington showing. - [8] Cleveland Museum of Art press release for Revealing Krishna, naming Sonya Rhie Mace, Beth Edelstein, Colleen Snyder, Bertrand Porte and Chea Socheat, the Angkor Borei Museum and the funding. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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