A Ruler Seated on a Terrace Worshipping at a Shrine of Radha and Krishna (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

A Ruler Seated on a Terrace Worshipping at a Shrine of Radha and Krishna (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A noble clad in a black woolen shawl and a red turban, both with delicate floral embroidery, kneels before a small shrine with icons of Krishna fluting alongside his lover Radha. An attendant dressed in white holds a fly whisk that denotes the kneeling figure’s royal status. The black sky with light horizon suggests that the sun has recently set. In spite of the individualized facial features, this noble remains unidentified.

Object facts

• Title: A Ruler Seated on a Terrace Worshipping at a Shrine of Radha and Krishna
• Date: c. 1800
• Culture: Central India, Madhya Pradesh
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: 25.1 x 20 cm (9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.135

A detail from the museum

Both figures have rosaries of rudraksha beads usually worn by followers of Shiva, instead of Krishna.

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.