European Costume Scene (c. 1590–1595): Art, History and Details

European Costume Scene (c. 1590–1595) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This painting of European subjects by an unnamed Indian artist depicts an unidentified scene in which two merchants approach a pavilion where a seated lady receives a kneeling holy man unrolling a scroll before her. The figures wear garments associated with different periods, which increases the painting’s ambiguity. The distant cityscape in the upper left corner is a Mughal version of the type introduced into India by Jesuit missionaries who brought gifts of European paintings and engravings.

Object facts

• Title: European Costume Scene
• Date: c. 1590–1595
• Culture: India, Mughal Dynasty (1526-1756)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 21.5 x 13.4 cm (8 7/16 x 5 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1971.89

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings 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.