Krishna Exacts a Toll from the Milkmaids: Dana-Lila, from a Bhagavata Purana (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

Krishna Exacts a Toll from the Milkmaids: Dana-Lila, from a 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:

Krishna can be seen here teasing the girls who bring pots of milk and yogurt to the Brahmin priests. Thinking it a waste of time to feed the Brahmins, Krishna waylays them, pretending to be the owner of the land where they are walking. He threatens to topple their pots if they don’t pay him a toll. An exasperated cow herder follows.

Object facts

• Title: Krishna Exacts a Toll from the Milkmaids: Dana-Lila, from a Bhagavata Purana
• Date: c. 1600
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 21.6 x 29.2 cm (8 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.186

A detail from the museum

A red quadrangle offsets the blue-skinned god Krishna.

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.