Farhad Kills Himself After Hearing the False News of Shirin’s Death (c. 1810): Art, History and Details

Farhad Kills Himself After Hearing the False News of Shirin’s Death (c. 1810) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Amar Das Bhatti (Indian, active 1800s); Dana Bhatti (Indian, active 1800s).

The work and its context

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

A man’s lifeless body is being observed by a group of women. A kneeling woman with a halo and wearing fine garments is Shirin, the beloved of the dead man, Farhad. Farhad cut a canal of milk through a mountain pass as a proof of his love, but on hearing the false news of her demise, he jumped off the mountain and killed himself.

Object facts

• Title: Farhad Kills Himself After Hearing the False News of Shirin’s Death
• Date: c. 1810
• Creator attribution: Amar Das Bhatti (Indian, active 1800s); Dana Bhatti (Indian, active 1800s)
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Marwar, Rajput Kingdom of Jodhpur
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 29.8 x 19.6 cm (11 3/4 x 7 11/16 in.); Miniature: 28.6 x 17.8 cm (11 1/4 x 7 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.198

A detail from the museum

An Islamic town characterized by domes can be seen in the diminishing background.

Collection credit

Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase 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.