A blindfolded suitor is brought before a princess; verso: scrolling floral vines (1755): Art, History and Details

A blindfolded suitor is brought before a princess; verso: scrolling floral vines (1755) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Fayzullah (Indian, active c. 1730–1765).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In a scene set on a carpeted terrace in the women’s palace quarters, an older woman of the harem drags a young prince with a white blindfold over his eyes before a princess grasping a document. Such a scene evokes a literary allusion of a princess who selects her suitor, but it also resonates with circumstances at the Mughal court. Signed and dated by the artist, this painting was completed at a time when powerful women wielded control over the emperor, and Ahmad Shah Bahadur (reigned 1748–54), son and successor of Muhammad Shah, had been blinded and deposed less than one year before.

Object facts

• Title: A blindfolded suitor is brought before a princess; verso: scrolling floral vines
• Date: 1755
• Creator attribution: Fayzullah (Indian, active c. 1730–1765)
• Culture: India, Lucknow, Mughal, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.343

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.