Artwork Page for Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala

Details / Information for Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala

Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala

c. 1720

Northern India, Pahari kingdoms

Medium
gum tempera and gold on paper
Measurements
Image: 19.1 x 28.6 cm (7 1/2 x 11 1/4 in.); Page: 21.7 x 30.9 cm (8 9/16 x 12 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2018.93
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.
Location
242B Indian Painting
Print
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Did You Know?

The vina is an Indian stringed instrument with gourd attached on each end as a resonator.

Description

One morning, Madhava sits beneath a tree to play his vina (stringed instrument). At this hour, women come to a well to draw water. Time unfolds across the figures of the five women. Two pull their full water pots from the well. One stops abruptly, hearing his musical strains. Two have become so entranced that they drop and break their pots in surprise and listen with delight.
A horizontally oriented painting depicts a reddish-brown landscape, at the center of which five women with medium skin tones gather around a white well. Two lean over pulling ropes while others stand nearby with clay pots, wearing vibrant robes of red and yellow. At left, dark-skinned Madhava sits on a platform playing a stringed instrument. Framed by leafy trees under a dark blue sky, broken pottery litters the lower right corner.

Madhava plays his vina before five women drawing water from a well, folio 3 from a Madhavanala-Kamakandala

c. 1720

Northern India, Pahari kingdoms

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