Women enjoying the river at the forest’s edge (recto) and flowering marigold (verso) (c. 1765): Art, History and Details

Women enjoying the river at the forest’s edge (recto) and flowering marigold (verso) (c. 1765) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hunhar II (Indian, active mid-1700s).

The work and its context

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

The image of young women at play, in association with water and the fruiting of trees, such as this mango, has been used in Indian art to signal the idea of prosperity and abundance. Rain clouds approach that will nourish the land. The pairs of women on the banks sample perfumes, and in front of them bowls made of leaves appear to hold jasmine flowers for adorning the hair. One woman smokes a hookah and looks on as two companions frolic in the rivulet. The palace’s white marble buildings are barely indicated in the far distance.

Object facts

• Title: Women enjoying the river at the forest’s edge (recto) and flowering marigold (verso)
• Date: c. 1765
• Creator attribution: Hunhar II (Indian, active mid-1700s)
• Culture: India, Murshidabad or Lucknow, Mughal, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 33.1 x 24.9 cm (13 1/16 x 9 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.351

A detail from the museum

Mangoes are in varying stages of ripeness, from green to bright orange-yellow.

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Quintanilla, Sonya Rhie. “Art and Stories: Dazzling paintings and luxurious objects tell tales from Mughal India.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 4 (July/August 2016): 5–7.
• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016.

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.