Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Noblewoman at a Jharokha Window Holding a Rose, from a Portraits of Women series
c. 1730
- Medium
- gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 28 x 25.2 cm (11 x 9 15/16 in.); Miniature: 24.8 x 21.6 cm (9 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Sawar
- 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
A royal woman stands on a palace balcony under a cusped arch. The carpet draped over the railing in front of her indicates to viewers that the person is a member of the royal family. The rulers of small kingdoms adopted the Mughal practice of locating the emperor in the jharokha window and expanded it to include other members of the royal household. They also adopted the Mughal taste for scalloped arches, swirling arabesque flowering-vine motifs, and images of flowering plants on the carpet. Her oversized eye emphasizes the importance of seeing and being seen.
