Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala (c. 1720): Art, History and Details

Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala (c. 1720) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

One morning, Madhava sits beneath a tree to play his vina (stringed instrument). At this hour, women come to a well to draw water. Time unfolds across the figures of the five women. Two pull their full water pots from the well. One stops abruptly, hearing his musical strains. Two have become so entranced that they drop and break their pots in surprise and listen with delight.

Object facts

• Title: Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala
• Date: c. 1720
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 19.1 x 28.6 cm (7 1/2 x 11 1/4 in.); Page: 21.7 x 30.9 cm (8 9/16 x 12 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.93

A detail from the museum

The vina is an Indian stringed instrument with gourd attached on each end as a resonator.

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.

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.