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Baby Krishna Asking for Butter from Yashoda, from a Kalighat album
c. 1890
- Medium
- Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Secondary Support: 48 x 30 cm (18 7/8 x 11 13/16 in.); Painting only: 45.7 x 28 cm (18 x 11 in.)
- Culture
- Eastern India, 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
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
As the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, whose followers recognize as the deity who creates and destroys the universe, Krishna was always eating. Like time itself, which ultimately consumes everything, Krishna eats so much his foster mother Yashoda cannot believe it. When she looks in his mouth, she sees the cosmos and realizes he is not an ordinary baby.
