Two Women Pluck Flowers on a Terrace: Gunakali Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

Two Women Pluck Flowers on a Terrace: Gunakali Ragini, from a Ragamala (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A woman with dark complexion and her fair-skinned companion collect flowers in a white bowl from a plant growing in a golden pot. Two huge yellow bolsters set rakishly on the bed suggest restlessness inside the chamber. A gold box for breath-freshening betel (paan) is on the bed, and golden wine vessels are in the two turrets and on the roof, probably to be drunk while watching for her lover to arrive.

Object facts

• Title: Two Women Pluck Flowers on a Terrace: Gunakali Ragini, from a Ragamala
• Date: c. 1650
• Culture: Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 21 x 16.5 cm (8 1/4 x 6 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.130

A detail from the museum

The musical mode Gunakari is performed before sunrise, suggested by the black background.

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.