- Title
- Incense Burner Cover
- Date Made
- 14th-15th century
- Medium
- Earthenware
- Dimensions
- 3 1/4 x 3 1/2 x 3 3/4 in. (8.26 x 8.89 x 9.53 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1993.239.4
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Numerous earthenware sculptures and decorative objects modeled by hand or made with molds have been unearthed in the environs of Trowulan (or Trawulan), the former capital of the Majapahit Empire (1292–1527) in Eastern Java. A substantial quantity of the surviving corpus consists of sculptures of various figural types, including caricatures, servants, ascetics, as well as numerous animals. In addition to the sculptures being objets d’art, they were also utilized as fertility decoration and/or the overall object form, such as this cover for an incense burner in the form of a now-headless woman with holes in her breasts and in the base for the smoke to escape. See also M.73.119.27 and M.82.74.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Icons of Piety, Images of Whimsy: Asian Terra-cottas from the Walter Grounds Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987.
