Yusuf and Zulaykha meeting (c. 1764): Art, History and Details

Yusuf and Zulaykha meeting (c. 1764) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Joseph, called Yusuf in Arabic and Persian sources, had been thrown into a well by his jealous older brothers. Although his eldest brother intended to return and rescue him, Joseph was taken by a caravan and brought to Egypt to be sold as a slave. When Zulaykha saw Joseph in the market, she recognized him as the lover she had seen in her dreams since childhood and so purchased him for herself. When read as a religious allegory, Zulaykha’s passionate desire for Joseph is interpreted as the yearning of the soul to be joined with the perfect beauty of God.

Object facts

• Title: Yusuf and Zulaykha meeting
• Date: c. 1764
• Culture: India, Provincial Mughal, Lucknow, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 40.5 x 28 cm (15 15/16 x 11 in.); Average: 21.5 x 15 cm (8 7/16 x 5 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1939.164

A detail from the museum

Joseph wears a Central Asian fur-trimmed hat and coat and holds Indian paan.

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr., for the Coralie Walker Hanna Memorial Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "The Coralie Walker Hanna Memorial Collection Gift of Leonard C Hanna." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 6 (June 1939): 84-115
• Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986.

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.