Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Milkmaids and Expounds on the Virtue of Trees, from a Braj Bhagavata Purana

Cleveland Museum of Art

Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Milkmaids and Expounds on the Virtue of Trees, from a Braj Bhagavata Purana

Date
c. 1650
Medium
Gum tempera on paper
Culture
Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
153199

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

When the milkmaids went to the Yamuna River to bathe, Krishna stealthily took their clothes and hid them in the treetops. Here, the blue-skinned Krishna sits in a tree playing his flute, waiting for the women to come to him. True devotees must shed all worldly inhibitions and approach their god with nothing to hide. The narrow register above shows Krishna expounding on the virtue of trees to the other cowherds. The illustration closely follows the extensive text, written on the back in the vernacular language of Braj, even down to the detail of how they drank the sweet water of the Yamuna River.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Walzer
Provenance
?–1986: Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Walzer, Georgetown, CT, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1986–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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