Cleveland Museum of Art
Sacrificial Fire, from the "Tula Ram" Bhagavata Purana
- Date
- c. 1720
- Medium
- Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Culture
- Western India, Gujarat, Surat
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 155592
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The evil king Kamsa organized a fire sacrifice in order to bring about the death of his brother-in-law, Vasudeva, father of the Hindu god incarnated as Krishna. The four-armed god of creation, Brahma, attends at the upper left with the sage, or holy man, Narada at the upper right. Scholars have linked the copious floral motifs throughout this dispersed series with textile patterns. This series was created in a port city, the center of flourishing international textile trade. The sage Narada in the upper right corner plays a stringed instrument called a vina .
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of John D. Proctor
- Provenance
- by 1975: George Bickford [1901–1991], Cleveland Heights, OH | ?–1990: John D. Proctor, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1990–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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