Cleveland Museum of Art
Vaishnava Devotee with Two Women
- Date
- c. 1890
- Medium
- Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
- Culture
- Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Here a devotee of Vishnu is wearing shoes and is depicted with some irony as being a fashionable devotee, or perhaps merely posing as orthodox. Kalighat artists often targeted hypocritical Vaishnava mendicants whose intentions with unsuspecting women were far from innocent. On his forehead one finds sectarian marks worn by worshippers of Vishnu. The man’s right hand and one of the women’s left hands, both held aloft, are colored red, possibly to indicate that they were adorned with henna.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.
Leaf from a Kalighat album: Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto); Krishna weighed against precious objects(?) (verso)
Cleveland Museum of Art
A Couple (from the series Costumes and Professions)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Das Avataras, Ten Incarnations of Vishnu (verso), from a Kalighat album
Cleveland Museum of Art
Leaf from a Kalighat album: Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Cowgirls (Gopis) (recto); Das Avataras, Ten Incarnations of Vishnu (verso)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Krishna Stroking Radha's Feet (verso), from a Kalighat album
Cleveland Museum of Art
Leaf from a Kalighat album: The Goddess Kali (recto); Kali Standing on Shiva (verso)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Kali Standing on Shiva (verso), from a Kalighat album
Cleveland Museum of Art
Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto), from a Kalighat album
Cleveland Museum of Art
Vishnu in Female Form of Mohini Carrying Amrita for the Gods
Cleveland Museum of Art
A group of women in ecstasy before Madhava, folio 4 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala
Cleveland Museum of Art
Krishna as Kali worshipped by Radha (recto), from a Kalighat album
Cleveland Museum of Art
Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Milkmaids and Expounds on the Virtue of Trees, from a Braj Bhagavata Purana
Cleveland Museum of Art