Ascetic Princess with Snakes in a Wilderness: Asavari Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

Ascetic Princess with Snakes in a Wilderness: Asavari Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

According to a theme explored in various examples of Indian poetry and literature, a princess has fled her royal life to live alone on an island in the forest. She has skillfully made a skirt and hut of leaves and vines. Suffering deprivation and practicing yogic disciplines, she has achieved the power to peacefully commune with the water snakes, who are mystically drawn to her.

Object facts

• Title: Ascetic Princess with Snakes in a Wilderness: Asavari Ragini, from a Ragamala
• Date: c. 1650
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 25.8 x 18.2 cm (10 3/16 x 7 3/16 in.); Miniature: 19.7 x 12.7 cm (7 3/4 x 5 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.190

A detail from the museum

This painting once belonged to the filmmaker James Ivory (American, b. 1928).

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.