Albright-Knox Shiva Finds a Good Home

Sometimes deaccessioners get lucky: A work that belongs in the public domain stays in the public domain.
Such was the case with the life-size granite figure of Shiva as Brahma, Chola Period, ca. 10th-11th century, sold March 23 at Sotheby’s for $4,072,000 with buyers commission ($3.6 million hammer), an auction record for an Indian stone sculpture. It had been in the Albright-Knox Gallery’s collection since 1927 and was one of the 207 objects consigned for sale by the Buffalo museum.
The Cleveland Museum has now revealed that it was the purchaser of the Shiva, which will join its superlative Asian art collection, a mere 200 miles away from the sculpture’s previous home. Cleveland’s permanent collection galleries are currently closed for the museum’s $258-million renovation and expansion.
Lindsay Pollock of Bloomberg has more on the story.