Tiered Court Scene (c. 1735): Art, History and Details

Tiered Court Scene (c. 1735) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Chitarman II (Indian, c. 1680–с. 1750).

The work and its context

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

Emperor Muhammad Shah rekindled an imperial interest in Hinduism that had not been so strong since the time of Akbar, 150 years before. He commissioned this painting that shows the acts of Rama, hero of a Hindu epic, who slays the demon of the golden city of Lanka at the top of the page. In the middle sections, various Hindu deities enjoy music, kite flying, and boating, while at the bottom the Krishna plays Holi with his lover Radha and other palace women. They shoot red-colored water at one another with plunger guns in celebration of the coming of spring.

Object facts

• Title: Tiered Court Scene
• Date: c. 1735
• Creator attribution: Chitarman II (Indian, c. 1680–с. 1750)
• Culture: Northern India, Delhi, Mughal court of Muhammad Shah (reigned 1719–48)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 54.6 x 39 cm (21 1/2 x 15 3/8 in.); Painting: 40.1 x 29.1 cm (15 13/16 x 11 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1973.237

A detail from the museum

A leering sea horse monster rears its head below the golden island city of Lanka.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael de Havenon

Further reading listed by the museum

• Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1986.
• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016.
• "A Hindu Painting from Mughal India." Nūr: CAIS magazine 5, no. 2 (Winter 2021):

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.