Hide and Seek: Krishna Playing a Game with the Gopas (Cowherders)

This is probably one of the finest and most famous Indian paintings in the Kronos
Collection. It is one of the few stand­alone works in America ascribed to the great artist
Manaku, who never signed any of his pictures. Manaku was born in the small Pahari
kingdom of Guler around the year 1700, and lived and worked there until about l760, the
presumed year of his death. He was the son of Pandit Seu, another important Pahari artist, and
the older brother of the great Nainsukh (see cat. nos. 69, 70), through whose influence the style
of all paintings in the Punjab Hills was completely transformed.
Consistent with his talent, Manaku was given the major responsibility for producing a
number of the greatest series ever attempted in Indian painting. By circa 1725 he was
entrusted with the greatly enlarged and refigured “Siege of Lanka” portion of his father’s
Ramayana series. This segment, one of the most important in Indian art, comprises about eight
finished pictures, about four half­finished pictures, and about twenty­eight preparatory drawings.
(l) By circa l730 Manaku was entrusted with another great series: a Gita Govinda Series,
comprising about 150 folios. (2) And by circa 1740 he was entrusted with the so­called Small
74. SK.068
Guler Bhagavata Purana (3), a series comprising hundreds of folios, including completely
finished pictures (see cat. no. 66) as well as preparatory drawings (see cat. no. 67). Paintings
in all of these series were produced in Manaku’s characteristically conservative and majestic
manner, with strong background colors; a narrow strip of sky along the top and a narrow strip of
water along the bottom; and simplified, rather flattened figures; landscape elements; and
architecture contained within a horizontal frame.
Be that as it may, Manaku did on occasion paint individual , or album, pictures, as here,
i.e. ones that did not belong to and were never intended to belong to a larger series. The
present, stand­ alone, picture of circa l750­55 also indicates the direction of Manaku’s later
style, which under the influence of his charismatic younger brother Nainsukh, became
increasingly naturalistic.
In this picture the grouping of the seated cows in the foreground is beautifully arranged;
and the nighttime sky, the translucent leaves and blossoms, and the gentle moonlight gilding the
hillside are all marvels of observation. (4) But in the more important mid­section of the picture,
the frieze­like interplay of figures negates the sense of a continuous outdoor space that Manaku
has labored hard to realize. Here, the artist’s native, conservative bent has come to the fore. In
the end, in his picture the interplay of Krishna and the gopas is all important. Everything else
is illusory: the natural world is subsidiary to Krishna’s game; and to the moral lesson it teaches.
W.G. Archer believes this painting was made in the kingdom of Kangra in ca. 1780. He
dismisses the inscription on its reverse (“painted by Manak”) as a late addition. (5) Archer was
perhaps a bit out­of­date with respect to the artist Manaku.
For a painting and a drawing now firmly attributed to Manaku, see cat. nos. 66­67.
(l) Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B.N. Goswamy, eds., 2011, Vol.II., pg. 642
(2) Ibid (3) Ibid, pg. 643
(4) Steven Kossak 1997, pg. 100
(5) W.G. Archer l973, Vol. I, pg. 293
l

Inscription: Inscribed in Hindi on the reverse in black ink written in devanagari script: manak ki likhi/ ”painted by Manak”

ex collection Maharaja Manvindra Shah of Tehri Garhwal, Narendranagar, U.P., in 1958; ex Swiss Collection 1983

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.