Noblewoman at a Jharokha Window Holding a Rose, from a Portraits of Women series (c. 1730): Art, History and Details

Noblewoman at a Jharokha Window Holding a Rose, from a Portraits of Women series (c. 1730) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A royal woman stands on a palace balcony under a cusped arch. The carpet draped over the railing in front of her indicates to viewers that the person is a member of the royal family. The rulers of small kingdoms adopted the Mughal practice of locating the emperor in the jharokha window and expanded it to include other members of the royal household. They also adopted the Mughal taste for scalloped arches, swirling arabesque flowering-vine motifs, and images of flowering plants on the carpet. Her oversized eye emphasizes the importance of seeing and being seen.

Object facts

• Title: Noblewoman at a Jharokha Window Holding a Rose, from a Portraits of Women series
• Date: c. 1730
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Sawar
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 28 x 25.2 cm (11 x 9 15/16 in.); Miniature: 24.8 x 21.6 cm (9 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.182

A detail from the museum

The carpet is patterned with roses to match the flowers she holds.

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.