The Heroine Who is Faithfully Loved: Madhya Svadhinapatika Nayika, from a Rasamanjari of Bhanudatta (c. 1710): Art, History and Details

The Heroine Who is Faithfully Loved: Madhya Svadhinapatika Nayika, from a Rasamanjari of Bhanudatta (c. 1710) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The heroine sits in front of a red cushion confiding in her friend that she feels passionate desire for her husband, but she firmly refuses his advances. Nevertheless, he continues to wait for her, remains faithful, ready to honor her. Among the different types of heroines described in the popular collection of poems called the Rasamanjari, she is projected as the supreme type.

Object facts

• Title: The Heroine Who is Faithfully Loved: Madhya Svadhinapatika Nayika, from a Rasamanjari of Bhanudatta
• Date: c. 1710
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 17 x 26.8 cm (6 11/16 x 10 9/16 in.); Overall: 20.5 x 28.2 cm (8 1/16 x 11 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1967.239

A detail from the museum

The man at right nervously grasps his scarf as he respectfully approaches his lover and her companion.

Collection credit

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Lee

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• Dwivedi, Vinod P. “A Rasamanjari Painting from Basohli.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 7 (September 1969): 262–268.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.