Royal lovers watching rain clouds: The month of Bhadon, from a Barahmasa
1790
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1790
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Royal lovers watching rain clouds: The month of Bhadon, from a Barahmasa is a 1790 unspecified by Unknown, a Mughal Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a prince and his lover on a palace balcony, watching dark rain clouds roll in over green hills. This painting is one page from a *Barahmasa*—a set of twelve scenes, one for each month in the Hindu calendar. Bhadon, the month shown here, falls in late summer when monsoon rains trap people indoors. The artist used the weather to explain why the couple has time to be together. To see more paintings like this, look up the subject northern India, Pahari kingdoms.
Barahmasa means Twelve Months, and this painting came from a series that depicts scenes associated with each month of the Hindu calendar. Bhadon corresponds to a month straddling August and September. It is the middle of the monsoon season when rivers are swollen and continual rainstorms prevent travel and warfare. For this reason, men remain at home, and Bhadon is famed as a month for lovemaking.
The oval format became popular after the 1760s with the expansion of British presence in India.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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