Durga Killing the Demon Mahisha (c. 1890): Art, History and Details

Durga Killing the Demon Mahisha (c. 1890) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A ten-armed Durga stands triumphant as she grabs the hair of the buffalo demon’s true form, one foot on his neck, about to plunge the spear into his heart. Interestingly, the demon wears European buckled shoes; this painting was made in the British enclave then known as Calcutta. Made by artists who sold their works in a goddess temple bazaar, this painting was made with rapid brush strokes and thin paint layers on inexpensive paper. Exuberant in their devotional vitality and visceral color sensibilities, Kalighat paintings achieved acclaim among modern artists of the 20th century.

Object facts

• Title: Durga Killing the Demon Mahisha
• Date: c. 1890
• Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
• Dimensions: Secondary Support: 50.5 x 32 cm (19 7/8 x 12 5/8 in.); Painting only: 45.8 x 28.3 cm (18 1/16 x 11 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2003.103

Collection credit

Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sarma, Deepak. "Indian Kalighat Paintings." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 51, no. 4 (July/August 2011): 4–6.
• Ellcock, Stephen. The Book of Change: Images to Inspire Revelations and Revolutions. London: September Publishing, 2021.

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.