A Disconsolate Lady on a Terrace with Attendants (c. 1730): Art, History and Details

A Disconsolate Lady on a Terrace with Attendants (c. 1730) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This princess is waiting for her lover to arrive. Thinking of him, she touches her breast and her lap, while one attendant keeps flies off with the royal whisk, and the other bites her finger in a gesture of astonishment. The artist has whimsically manipulated elements of the landscape, such as the blazing sun peeking out from behind the flat black hill at the lower left corner, and invading the yellow strip at the top with blocks of blue sky to accommodate the finials of the palace rooftops.

Object facts

• Title: A Disconsolate Lady on a Terrace with Attendants
• Date: c. 1730
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Raghogarh
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, silver, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 28.3 x 22.9 cm (11 1/8 x 9 in.); Miniature: 23.5 x 15.2 cm (9 1/4 x 6 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.185

A detail from the museum

Her loose hair and seating posture with one leg outstretched indicate that she is losing hope.

Collection credit

Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

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.