# Four-armed goddess, with hearts in margin

- Date: 1900s
- Medium: ink and color on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Overall: 36.2 x 27 cm (14 1/4 x 10 5/8 in.)
- Culture: Eastern India, Bihar, Mithila region
- Credit line: Gift of Pamela Elizabeth Ward in loving memory of her parents, William E. and Evelyn Svec Ward
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2005.86)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2005.86/2005.86_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This goddess holds a lotus flower and a discus, along with two other unidentified objects. Historically, Madhubani paintings were murals created with brushes made of bamboo and cotton. They ornamented domestic spaces on the occasion of a festival or rite of passage in a woman's life, such as a birth or a wedding. In the wake of a drought in 1966, the All India Handicrafts Board encouraged women of the Mithila region make paintings on paper, so they could sell them and help support their communities.