Open full image Pin

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

Unknown

1650

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Baroque Mughal Painting Baroque Religious Madhya Pradesh Malwa

Dominant colour

Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Milkmaids and Expounds on the Virtue of Trees, from a Braj Bhagavata Purana is a 1650 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, depicting Madhya Pradesh, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1650 · Baroque
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a bright blue Krishna perched in a tree, flute in hand, while a group of women stand below, hands folded, waiting for their clothes. This painting comes from a long tradition of illustrated Hindu manuscripts. The story teaches that true devotion means letting go of shame. The artist included the exact words from the sacred text on the back—almost like subtitles. To see more paintings like this, look up *central india, madhya pradesh, malwa*.

The story of this work

Overview

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…

Read the full account in the museum source.