
Cleveland Museum of Art
Nanda Solves Vasudeva’s Dilemma, from a Bhagavata Purana
- Date
- c. 1610
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Culture
- Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 170907
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Three cowherd boys stand behind their village elder Nanda, who agrees to hide the newborn Krishna, an incarnation of a Hindu god. At the left is Krishna’s father, Vasudeva, who has made this request in order to protect the child from slaughter by the despotic king, who had heard a prophecy that Krishna would one day kill him. This painting is from a series depicting scenes from a sacred Hindu text and was part of the royal Bikaner collection. The simple, geometric composition, profile views, and flat planes of color show adherence to long-standing local artistic styles.
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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 Kalesan Natesan in honor of Dr. Stanislaw Czuma
- Provenance
- collection of Christine Koeberl, from Zoog, Switzerland, near Zurich, since its purchase in 1962
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