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Five Poses of Krishna Making Love, from a Bikaner Bhagavata Purana
c. 1600
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Miniature: 17.5 x 25.4 cm (6 7/8 x 10 in.)
- Culture
- Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
- 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
When the Hindu god Vishnu incarnated as his human avatar Krishna, he spent his youth in a cowherd village. When he reached adolescence, the milkmaids were all drawn to him. A passage in the text explains that Krishna miraculously multiplied himself so he could be with each one individually, so they could experience the bliss of divine union.
