A page from a Punishment series: Punishment for murder (c. 1740): Art, History and Details

A page from a Punishment series: Punishment for murder (c. 1740) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Themes of punishments of hell were popular in Rajasthani ateliers, and several courts commissioned paintings depicting infernal cruelty. The dark-skinned punisher pulls a royal figure from his terrace with chains and is about to smite him with his baton. A ferocious tiger can be seen ripping another man with his claws.

Object facts

• Title: A page from a Punishment series: Punishment for murder
• Date: c. 1740
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bundi
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 33.7 x 24.8 cm (13 1/4 x 9 3/4 in.); Miniature: 27.3 x 17.5 cm (10 3/4 x 6 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.162

A detail from the museum

Both sinners have turbans unraveling.

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.