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

Court lady singing and playing the vina (recto) (c. 1760) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

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.

Object facts

• Title: Court lady singing and playing the vina (recto)
• Date: c. 1760
• Culture: India, Lucknow, Mughal, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Miniature: 21.6 x 16.8 cm (8 1/2 x 6 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.349.a

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.