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Opium Smokers Served Fruit and Bread

Unknown

1750

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Baroque Ottoman Miniature 18th Century Genre Scene

Dominant colour

Opium Smokers Served Fruit and Bread is a 1750 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1750 · Baroque
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a crowded terrace where nobles and holy men lounge on straw mats, smoking opium and eating fruit. Some are deep in talk, others look dazed or sleepy. A woman in peach sits quietly while men in blue robes—likely Sufi mystics—mix with clerics and aristocrats. The scene feels both relaxed and strange, like a party where not everyone is fully present. For more like this, look up the subject: *Mughal dynasty (1526-1756)*.

The story of this work

Overview

A red sandstone terrace and veranda covered with a straw mat is the setting for an assemblage of more than 30 religious figures and nobles, most of whom are depicted in varying stages of intoxication and hangovers. To the left of center is a female ascetic wearing a peach-colored robe, and throughout the composition Sufi mystics wearing blue are interspersed with white-robed clerics and Mughal nobles. Some lucidly engage in discussions, while others prepare, ingest, and experience the effects of cannabis or opium known to have been taken regularly by those seeking mind-altering states.…

Read the full account in the museum source.