Jatayu hinders Ravana’s chariot trying to prevent Sita’s abduction (recto), from a Kalighat album (c. 1890): Art, History and Details

Jatayu hinders Ravana’s chariot trying to prevent Sita’s abduction (recto), from a Kalighat album (c. 1890) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shri Gobinda Chandra Roy (Indian, active late 1800s).

The work and its context

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

As ten-headed Ravana successfully flies away with his quarry, Princess Sita, the demon king is stopped by the great vulture Jatayu, an ally to Sita’s husband Rama. Closely resembling the Bengali paintings of the same subject, a woodcut print was a less expensive alternative to a painting. Almost any resident of the burgeoning city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) could afford to acquire one. Woodcuts such as this were made on paper that Christian missionaries intended for the production of Bibles. However, local artists used it to mass-produce popular Hindu imagery.

Object facts

• Title: Jatayu hinders Ravana’s chariot trying to prevent Sita’s abduction (recto), from a Kalighat album
• Date: c. 1890
• Creator attribution: Shri Gobinda Chandra Roy (Indian, active late 1800s)
• Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Dimensions: Secondary Support: 49.8 x 31.4 cm (19 5/8 x 12 3/8 in.); image only: 40.6 x 26.5 cm (16 x 10 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2003.111.a

A detail from the museum

In the Bengali version of this episode, Jatayu swallows Ravana’s chariot only to vomit it out once he realizes Sita is aboard.

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.