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A night scene of Shiva puja (recto); Calligraphy (verso)
attributed to Muhammad Rizavi Hindi (Indian, active mid-1700s)
c. 1760–70
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 28.2 x 24.1 cm (11 1/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Mughal India, Lucknow
- 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
Under golden stars and a crescent moon, a royal woman offers a flower garland at an open-air shrine to the Hindu god Shiva. Installed on a platform under a sapling, the stone linga believed to contain Shiva’s presence bears the bright orange traces of devotional anointments. Orange kumkum (red turmeric powder) and yellow saffron are in tiny trays before her, and she has used them to mark her forehead with the signs of her piety. The small brass ewer would contain purified water to bathe the linga. On the platform are offerings of fragrant blossoms and the light of clarified butter lamps.
