King Bana in his court, from an Usha-Aniruddha (c. 1760–70): Art, History and Details

King Bana in his court, from an Usha-Aniruddha (c. 1760–70) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This portrait of a demon king depicts him listening to the report of one of his ministers. He may be hearing the news that his daughter Usha has been secretly receiving Krishna’s grandson Aniruddha in her bedchamber. The artist has depicted Bana with his 20 arms emerging like tentacles from his body. The members of his multicolored demon court are imaginatively rendered combinations of beasts and humans. In the background, demons harass holy men by burning their huts and chasing them away from their settlements.

Object facts

• Title: King Bana in his court, from an Usha-Aniruddha
• Date: c. 1760–70
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 21.9 x 32.1 cm (8 5/8 x 12 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1986.62

A detail from the museum

Clara Taplin Rankin, the donor of this painting, was a trustee of the CMA as well as the Musical Arts Association and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Collection credit

Gift of Clara Taplin Rankin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Czuma, Stanislaw J. Indian Art from the George P. Bickford Collection: Catalog. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975.
• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79.

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.