Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.

Taking of the toll, Dana-Lila

c. 1760

Medium: Gum tempera and gold on paper
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: Page: 26.2 x 19.9 cm (10 5/16 x 7 13/16 in.); Image: 21.2 x 17.9 cm (8 3/8 x 7 1/16 in.)
Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Credit line: Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
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

Radha, the blue god Krishna’s beloved, raises one hand, reddened with henna (temporary natural dye), to strike him. Cows and her companions look on. This interlude is based on a devotional poem written by Dev Datt (about 1673–1745), in which he imagines this scene. Radha has dressed up as a soldier of the evil tyrant Kamsa. She shouts, “You are accused of taking the toll from milkmaids. . . . You are a traitor!” In the distance at the top of the painting, Krishna’s friends, who do not know that the couple is playing, run away in fear.