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The Heroine Who Waits Anxiously for Her Absent Lover: Utka Nayika

c. 1734–50

Medium: Gum tempera and gold on paper
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: Page: 24.8 x 18.7 cm (9 3/4 x 7 3/8 in.); Miniature: 21 x 15.1 cm (8 1/4 x 5 15/16 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

The Sanskrit term nayika is typically translated as heroine, but more precisely a nayika is an idealized woman associated with various aspects of love, embodying a wide range of emotional and psychological states. Numerous literary works composed in India since at least the first century describe and categorize different types of nayikas.

This utka nayika stands in glowing orange and gold in the night, waiting for her lover to arrive. Her demeanor is quiet and resolved. Her gesture indicates wonder, possibly that the clouds may be passing, and the moon may emerge to brighten the scene. She may also be astonished at her own perseverance and how she no longer feels the fear and agitation of the darkness and the solitude.