Shvetambara Jain Teacher Giving Instruction (c. 1750–60): Art, History and Details

Shvetambara Jain Teacher Giving Instruction (c. 1750–60) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sahib Ram (Indian, active 1745–1803).

The work and its context

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

A manuscript lies on a low table in front of the preacher, who holds one hand up in the gesture of discourse, and the other holds a cloth to shield his mouth from insects. The audience of laypeople includes men gathered near the front of the composition, and women in a group toward the back. The preacher and the white-clad figures behind him are Jain householder monks, permitted to grow hair and moustaches and to wear a colored shawl that indicates higher status. Householder monks in Rajasthan often served as scribes and maintained manuscript libraries.

Object facts

• Title: Shvetambara Jain Teacher Giving Instruction
• Date: c. 1750–60
• Creator attribution: Sahib Ram (Indian, active 1745–1803)
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Jaipur
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20 x 27.9 cm (7 7/8 x 11 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.171

A detail from the museum

The monks seated next to the teacher place their whisk-brooms before them.

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

• Singh, Kumar Sangram. Catalogue of Indian Miniature Paintings (Collection of Kumar Sangram Singh of Nawalgarh): Exhibited in the Rajasthan University Library, Jaipur, from 12th to 17th December, 1965. 1965.
• Pal, Pratapaditya, with contributions by Shridhar Andhare and others. The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1994.
• Pratap, Rita. The Panorama of Jaipur Paintings. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 1996.

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.