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A female figure standing in a landscape holding a four-stringed “khuuchir” and a lotus
c. 1590
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 31.6 x 20.7 cm (12 7/16 x 8 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- 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
- 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
Standing over flowering sprigs, holding a lotus like a scepter, the figure seems to magically impart fertility to a desert. In pan-Indian religious iconography (system of visual symbols that identify a figure), the lotus is held by the goddess of good fortune, prosperity, and abundance, who is frequently associated with ideal kingship. The stringed instrument recalls the Indian goddess of learning and music, but here it is of a Mongolian type, as is the feather in her crown. Her garments are reminiscent of those worn by biblical and classical figures in European engravings. This painting combines Indian, European, and Mongolian references.
