Durga Slaying Mahisha (c. 1830): Art, History and Details

Durga Slaying Mahisha (c. 1830) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

According to the text dedicated to the exploits of the great goddess Devi in her various forms, there was a time in the mythic past when a buffalo demon was ravaging the world. Storm clouds swirl above and dust below him. The goddess in her warrior aspect in which she is named Durga rides a chariot pulled by two leonine tigers with blue skies and flowering trees above her. The two are about to clash in a bloody battle that will take place on the gently sloping hillside evocative of the western Himalayan foothills where this painting was made.

Object facts

• Title: Durga Slaying Mahisha
• Date: c. 1830
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 15.8 x 25.3 cm (6 1/4 x 9 15/16 in.); Overall: 17.7 x 27.5 cm (6 15/16 x 10 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1955.667

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. Rajput Painting. London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1916.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Lee, Sherman E. and George Montgomery. Rajput Painting; with an introductory essay and catalogue notes. New York: Asia House, 1960.

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.