Jailer Receiving the Mahant of Tarakeshwar in Prison (c. 1890): Art, History and Details

Jailer Receiving the Mahant of Tarakeshwar in Prison (c. 1890) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The Tarakeshwar murder case of 1873 was a public scandal in Calcutta (now Kolkata). It concerned an affair between Elokeshi, a young wife, and the chief priest of the Shiva temple at Tarakeshwar. Having learned about the affair, her jealous husband cut Elokeshi’s throat with a fish knife on May 27, 1873. In the subsequent trial, the husband, Banerji, was sentenced to life imprisonment and the priest was fined and imprisoned for three years. Several Bengali plays and Kalighat images were inspired by this affair and depicted events that did not actually occur but were imagined by the artist. Here the adulterer, the Mahant (head priest), is depicted roped to an Indian jailer and presented to an English (or Anglo-Indian) warden. The warden sits in a black chair, wearing an English top hat and holding in his right hand the Mahant’s warrant of commitment for adultery. Both the warden and jailer wear British-styled buckled shoes.

Object facts

• Title: Jailer Receiving the Mahant of Tarakeshwar in Prison
• Date: c. 1890
• Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Black ink, gum tempera, and tin paint, with graphite underdrawing on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 45 x 28 cm (17 11/16 x 11 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2003.105

Collection credit

Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward

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.