The Marriage of Pradyumna and Rukmavati, page from a Bhagavata Purana (c. 1525–40): Art, History and Details

The Marriage of Pradyumna and Rukmavati, page from a Bhagavata Purana (c. 1525–40) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Like his father Krishna, Pradyumna appears blue in color. He is shown three times in this painting with his bride. The scene of his marriage is in the upper level where a Brahmin, a Hindu priest, to the right of the pole and wearing a white lower garment and looped topknot of hair, performs the ceremony. Their arrival at the ceremony is pictured below. The flattened spaces and bold variety of background colors are typical of a major strain of Indian paintings made before the time of the Mughal emperor Akbar, who encouraged stylistic changes derived from exposure to Persian and European art forms.

Object facts

• Title: The Marriage of Pradyumna and Rukmavati, page from a Bhagavata Purana
• Date: c. 1525–40
• Culture: Northern India
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 16.3 x 21.5 cm (6 7/16 x 8 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1976.26

A detail from the museum

Pradyumna was the son of Krishna and an incarnation of the god of love.

Collection credit

Gift of Dr. Norman Zaworski

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.