Court lady singing and playing the vina (c. 1760): Art, History and Details

Court lady singing and playing the vina (c. 1760) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Muhammad Rizavi Hindi (Indian, active mid-1700s).

The work and its context

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

Her mouth open slightly in song, the woman’s hennaed fingers strum a three-string vina, an Indian musical instrument with a resonator made from a gourd. Music was an essential component of courtly entertainment, along with the drinking of wine and the appreciation of poetry, paintings, and jewels. On the verso, the first two lines in Persian read: Once again, Iraqi broke his vows: From the cup of love he became intoxicated and ecstatic. The excerpt from the mystic poet Jami is more of a pious injunction: Until you are bold enough to take to the seas, You will not reap spiritual benefits from your inner heart. Unless you pitch your tent next to the spiritual guide, You will not enjoy him to the fullest.

Object facts

• Title: Court lady singing and playing the vina
• Date: c. 1760
• Creator attribution: Muhammad Rizavi Hindi (Indian, active mid-1700s)
• Culture: India, Mughal, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 31.1 x 26.2 cm (12 1/4 x 10 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.349

A detail from the museum

When the mouth is open, and teeth and tongue are showing, she is singing.

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

• Sotheby's, London. Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. December 10, 1962.
• Krishnan, Gauri Parimoo. Beauty in Asia: 200 BCE to Today. Singapore: Asian Civilisations Museum, 2007.
• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016.

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.