Vishnu as Matsya
1885
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1885
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Vishnu as Matsya is a 1885 paint by Unknown, a Impressionism work, depicting Kalighat, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows a blue-skinned figure with four arms sitting on a giant fish. The figure wears a yellow cloth around its waist and a red cloth draped over one shoulder. The fish has a big eye and scaly skin, with a striped tail fin. The background is plain, letting the bright colors stand out. The figure holds a round orange object in one hand, possibly a ball or fruit. The painting looks like it was made with bold, flat colors and simple shapes. It’s part of the *kalighat* style, which comes from a specific region in India. Check out the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more works like this.
The artwork is a painting rendered in opaque watercolor on paper, depicting Vishnu in the Matsya avatar, the fish incarnation. It was acquired by the museum in 1950 from Miss M. Steele, whose mother, a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge, had inherited the series in 1894. The collection may have been originally gathered by Steele’s grandmother, who had lived in India. The provenance suggests a possible connection to early colonial-era collecting practices in South Asia.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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