Five Poses of Krishna Making Love, from a Bikaner Bhagavata Purana (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

Five Poses of Krishna Making Love, from a Bikaner Bhagavata Purana (c. 1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

When the Hindu god Vishnu incarnated as his human avatar Krishna, he spent his youth in a cowherd village. When he reached adolescence, the milkmaids were all drawn to him. A passage in the text explains that Krishna miraculously multiplied himself so he could be with each one individually, so they could experience the bliss of divine union.

Object facts

• Title: Five Poses of Krishna Making Love, from a Bikaner Bhagavata Purana
• Date: c. 1600
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Miniature: 17.5 x 25.4 cm (6 7/8 x 10 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.187

A detail from the museum

Krishna can be seen making love on a swing in the central circle.

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.