Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana in the forest (c. 1830): Art, History and Details

Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana in the forest (c. 1830) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Although banished from their home, Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana enjoy ten years of relative peace in the wilderness. They build a small hut, make clothes of bark cloth, and eat from the bounty of the forest. Lakshmana neatly prepares meat and roasts kabobs over a fire. The oval format, adopted from European models, suggests this scene was part of an album series. The pale hues and placement of figures in a space that recedes into the background reveal awareness of imperial Mughal paintings. The hilly scenery was likely inspired by the landscape surrounding the Kangra Valley.

Object facts

• Title: Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana in the forest
• Date: c. 1830
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari Region, Himachal Pradesh, Rajput Kingdom of Kangra, Court of Aniruddh Chand (reigned 1823–1833)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 21.5 x 15.1 cm (8 7/16 x 5 15/16 in.); Overall: 23.9 x 17.3 cm (9 7/16 x 6 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1989.332

A detail from the museum

Indian artists adopted the oval format from European models.

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990.

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.