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A Brahmin gives Krishna the Message or Invitation for the Competition to Rukmini’s Svayamvara, from a Bhagavata Purana
c. 1650–60
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 17.1 x 19.7 cm (6 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
- 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
- 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
Sitting on a stool in a palatial setting, Krishna receives a letter, inviting him to participate in a ceremony called a svayamvara, in which an unmarried woman who has come of age selects a husband. Krishna will later elope with the princess Rukmini. This scene takes place in Krishna’s western palace of Dvaraka, by the ocean, which is depicted with waves and fish at the bottom of the page.
