
Cleveland Museum of Art
A Brahmin gives Krishna the Message or Invitation for the Competition to Rukmini’s Svayamvara, from a Bhagavata Purana
- Date
- c. 1650–60
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Culture
- Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 314438
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
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. The letter in Krishna’s hand repeats the name of “Rama,” another incarnation of Vishnu.
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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
- Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Provenance
- May 21, 1981: (Sotheby’s NY, May 21, 1981, lot 130) | September 21, 1995: (Sotheby’s New York, NY, September 21, 1995, lot 281, sold to Ralph and Catherine Glynn Benkaim) | 1995-2001: Ralph Benkaim [1914-2001] and Catherine Glynn Benkaim [b. 1946], Beverly Hills, CA, by descent to Catherine Benkaim | 2001-2018: Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Barbara Timmer, Beverly Hills, CA, partial sale and gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 2018-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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