Shri Raga, from a Ragamala (c. 1695): Art, History and Details

Shri Raga, from a Ragamala (c. 1695) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This painting is from an important series made at a turning point in the history of court painting at the Rajput kingdom of Mewar. For the first time, a royal patron, Amar Singh II (r. 1698–1710), even before his accession to the throne, decided to incorporate Mughal elements into secular art, as seen in the white domed architecture and interest in conveying some sense of spatial depth. Nevertheless, the artist still adheres to the use of horizontal registers and bold planes of color. The codified iconography of Shri Raga involves a royal couple listening to recitations. Shri Raga is described as: "Splendidly enthroned of peerless beauty and lovely as the autumn moon, he sits hearing stories from Narada and Tumburu. By the great sages he is called Shri Raga King." Amar Singh has playfully substituted his own portrait for that of the generic king, and a woman for that of the sage. In music, Shri Raga is associated with the season of autumn and the harvest festivals, here evoked by the dancing female musicians in the lower register.

Object facts

• Title: Shri Raga, from a Ragamala
• Date: c. 1695
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Mewar
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 34.4 x 22.5 cm (13 9/16 x 8 7/8 in.); Overall: 38 x 25 cm (14 15/16 x 9 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1931.451

A detail from the museum

The horse-headed musician playing the cymbals is a celestial being (gandharva) famed for his sweet voice.

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard C. "An Early Rajput Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 20, no. 6 (June 1933): 96–98.
• Lee, Sherman. "The Decorative and the Super-Real: Two Rajasthani Miniatures." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 44, no. 8 (October 1957): 180-183.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.