Sheetaladevi: The Smallpox Goddess (recto), from a Kalighat album (c. 1890): Art, History and Details

Sheetaladevi: The Smallpox Goddess (recto), from a Kalighat album (c. 1890) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Sheetala, the smallpox goddess, is simultaneously benevolent and dangerous: she can both protect and infect, bless and curse devotees with smallpox and other diseases. Persons scarred by smallpox are believed to have been graced by her. She is appeased so that she does not infect her worshippers. Her name, Sheetala, “Cool One,” refers to her birth out of a cooled sacrificial fire. The rippled curtains above her are suggestive of theatrical tableau and Sheetalapala (The Drama of Sheetala) that was performed in Bengal. She sits astride her vehicle (vahana), the donkey, regarded as an inauspicious animal.

Object facts

• Title: Sheetaladevi: The Smallpox Goddess (recto), from a Kalighat album
• Date: c. 1890
• Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
• Dimensions: Secondary Support: 46.9 x 29.8 cm (18 7/16 x 11 3/4 in.); Painting only: 45.5 x 27.7 cm (17 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2003.157.a

Collection credit

Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward

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.