Cleveland Museum of Art
Sitar
- Date
- c. 1850
- Medium
- Gourd and wood with pigment, ivory, and bone; copper alloy: frets; iron alloy: strings (with one modern copper replacement)
- Culture
- Eastern India, Bengal or Bangladesh
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 98646
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The stringed instrument known as the sitar usually provided the central sound for the musical performances that were a constant feature of court life in India. The sitar could then be accompanied by percussion, voice, and other supporting instruments. In Raja Deen Dayal’s photograph Maharaja of Rewa in Prayer ( 2016.266.21 ), a musician strums a sitar in order to please the deities on the royal altar. The improvised compositions are played in a mode, or key, that correlates to the time of day and season of the year. Many paintings of Indian court life depict female musicians holding and playing this kind of lightweight stringed instrument.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- The Charles G. King Jr. collection; Gift of Ralph King in memory of Charles G. King Jr.
- Provenance
- ?–1918: Ralph King [1855–1926], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1918–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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