A royal ram with a gold chain (c. 1585; border added probably 1700s): Art, History and Details

A royal ram with a gold chain (c. 1585; border added probably 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The ram in this painting is a particularly well-groomed animal that was probably kept in the royal menagerie and attended to by special keepers. The puffs of hair on the ram’s back have been colored with henna, and he wears a decorative chain of bells across his chest. The Mughal rulers collected and exhibited specimens of various animals from their territories out of a scientific interest as well as a desire to display the extent of their influence over the land and its inhabitants.

Object facts

• Title: A royal ram with a gold chain
• Date: c. 1585; border added probably 1700s
• Culture: India, Mughal
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.298

A detail from the museum

Sheep with black and white markings like this are called Jacob sheep.

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

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ram, c. 1600–1615. Formerly attributed to Mansur (Indian, active about 1590–1625). Indian, Mughal. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; 13.2 x 15.8 cm (5 3/16 x 6 1/4 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ross-Coomaraswamy Collection 17.3104.

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.