Heroine with attendant and a pair of deer (c. 1710–20): Art, History and Details

Heroine with attendant and a pair of deer (c. 1710–20) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A heroine’s ardor for her absent lover is so strong that it attracts a deer and doe, otherwise shy animals. The woman holding a stringed instrument at the right signals that this scene has a musical theme. Intensely staring gazes, the heroine’s elongated legs, the impossible turn of her head in the opposite direction as her feet, and the unaided dance of her hems add to the miraculous quality of the scene.

Object facts

• Title: Heroine with attendant and a pair of deer
• Date: c. 1710–20
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 21.9 x 15.6 cm (8 5/8 x 6 1/8 in.); Image: 16.7 x 10.1 cm (6 9/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.108

A detail from the museum

The lady fondling the deer is adorned in a transparent muslin shawl.

Collection credit

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

Further reading listed by the museum

• Griswold, William, Cameron Kitchin, Chase F. Robinson, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, and National Museum of Asian Art (Smithsonian Institution). Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories, edited by Sonya Rhie Mace, Sarang Sharma, and Vijay Sharma. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2026.
• "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 66, no. 1 (2026): 14–15.

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.