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Jailer Receiving the Mahant of Tarakeshwar in Prison

c. 1890

Medium: Black ink, gum tempera, and tin paint, with graphite underdrawing on paper
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: Painting only: 45 x 28 cm (17 11/16 x 11 in.)
Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Credit line: Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed

About this work

The Tarakeshwar murder case of 1873 was a public scandal in Calcutta (now Kolkata). It concerned an affair between Elokeshi, a young wife, and the chief priest of the Shiva temple at Tarakeshwar. Having learned about the affair, her jealous husband cut Elokeshi’s throat with a fish knife on May 27, 1873. In the subsequent trial, the husband, Banerji, was sentenced to life imprisonment and the priest was fined and imprisoned for three years. Several Bengali plays and Kalighat images were inspired by this affair and depicted events that did not actually occur but were imagined by the artist. Here the adulterer, the Mahant (head priest), is depicted roped to an Indian jailer and presented to an English (or Anglo-Indian) warden. The warden sits in a black chair, wearing an English top hat and holding in his right hand the Mahant’s warrant of commitment for adultery. Both the warden and jailer wear British-styled buckled shoes.