The Lover Leaves Wistfully in the Morning after a Passionate Tryst: Lalit Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

The Lover Leaves Wistfully in the Morning after a Passionate Tryst: Lalit Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

After a night of lovemaking, the lover leaves his sleeping consort early in the morning. He thoughtfully turns his head to take a last look at his beautiful beloved before departing. The heroine, unaware of her lover’s egression, slumbers on the footed bed with boldly patterned textile. The break of dawn has been depicted with the depiction of blue sky overlapping the black background.

Object facts

• Title: The Lover Leaves Wistfully in the Morning after a Passionate Tryst: Lalit Ragini, from a Ragamala
• Date: c. 1600
• Culture: Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 19.1 x 16.5 cm (7 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.123

A detail from the museum

The hero carries two garlands in his hands as souvenirs of the previous night.

Collection credit

Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

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.