Cleveland Museum of Art

Krishna's Butter Ball, Mahabalipuram

Unidentified Photographer

Date: c. 1900s
Medium: Gelatin silver print, toned, on collodion printing-out paper
Culture: early 20th century
Department: Photography
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

Mahabalipuram is a site on India’s southeastern coast where numerous rock-cut temples and sculptures were carved during the early 600s. The site includes a remarkable, naturally occurring boulder that became known popularly as Krishna’s Butter Ball, thereby merging a geological phenomenon with sacred narrative. If baby Krishna could crawl while holding this monolith as effortlessly in his hand as a ball of butter, he must be a magnificently powerful god. Colonial-era tourists enjoy their excursion to the site with no indication that they recognized its sanctity. Photographs such as this would have been sent back to Britain for viewers to marvel at the landscape of India. It was popular during the early 1900s to tone silver gelatin photographs with gold to give them a warm glow.

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