Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Krishna Celebrates the Start of the Rainy Season, folio from the devotional text of the Bhagavata Purana
Attributed to the Master of the Swirling Skies
Not on view
In this rarely depicted scene, Krishna sits sheltered by an umbrella in a verdant landscape as autumn rains shower down, represented as streaks of white dots. Youthful cows look lovingly at Krishna and graze on newly grown grass, while lotuses bloom in the flowing river below. This image is based on a detailed two-page passage from the Bhagavata Purana that reads, “The dried-up earth was fully replenished like the sensually motivated body of a repentant person.” Rather than using an established iconography, the painter created a new and unique realization of the text, including details such as the twilight atmosphere. This Jammu artist worked in an early Pahari idiom and masterfully grouped figures and played with scale to produce a work with great compositional unity.
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