The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Full conservation statement
  In this large painting on paper, a subdued Sita is depicted in a lush garden surrounded by her captors, a golden castle wall, and a moat. Prior to entering the CMA collection, the painting had incurred several losses to the image whereby the surface layers—paint and paper—were skinned away. In 1984, losses at the perimeter of the composition were structurally repaired and partially retouched for better visual integration, but noticeable losses remained in the spikes on the castle wall and grassy lawn. The conspicuous location of the loss in front of the kneeling Sita and in line with her downward gaze has caused viewers to wonder if something relating to the narrative—and the object of Sita’s attention—had been purposely effaced. With the advantage of being able to inspect the painting closely, there was no question that the location of the loss was accidental and its character entirely consistent with the other major structural damages scattered in the painting, all likely caused by something becoming stuck to the surface and then roughly pulled away. To prevent misinterpretation, a structural and cosmetic conservation treatment was designed to restore visual continuity to the grassy lawn as much as possible. Treatment entailed the following steps: 1) cleaning the area of loss to remove accumulated surface dirt, 2) building up the substrate to receive a toned paper insert that when precisely positioned and adhered would lie flush with the surface, and 3) further disguising the pre-toned insert with inpainting. As is often the case with inpainting, visually tying the repair into the surrounding original material was most challenging where the surrounding material was also altered. This discontinuity is apparent above the insert where the green had been altered to have a bluish cast and below the insert where the green had perhaps shifted to a darker, brown-tinged hue.
• Provenance
  Raja Raghunath Singh of Guler

  Ananda K. Coomaraswamy [1877–1947]

  ?–1966

  George P. Bickford [1901–1991] and Clara Louise Gehring Bickford [1903–1985], Cleveland Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art

  1966–

  The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• Citations
  Jain-Neubauer, Jutta. The Ramayana in Pahari Miniature Painting. Ahmedabad: LD Institute of Indology, 1981. Reproduced: no. 5, plate XI, fig. 22, pp. 38-39.

  Gilbert, Rita, and William McCarter. Living with Art. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc., 1988. 2nd edition. Reproduced: fig. 66, p. 60.

  Diane de Selliers, ed., Rāmāyaṇa. Volume V. Paris, 2011. Reproduced: p. 59.

  Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1994. 5th edition. Reproduced: p. 215, color plate 24.

  Lee, Sherman E. and George Montgomery. Rajput Painting; with an introductory essay and catalogue notes. New York: Asia House, 1960. Reproduced: cat. no. 73A, pp. 76-77

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 239 archive.org

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 239 archive.org

  Archer, W. G. Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills; A Survey and History of Pahari Miniature Painting. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1973. Mentioned: 1: 146

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 309 archive.org

  Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986. Reproduced: cat. no. 113

  Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Reproduced: pp. 172-173

  Takac Panza, Jane "Mr. Bickford's Asian Adventures", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 46 no. 05, May/June 2006 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 11 archive.org

  Brommer, Gerald F. Discovering Art History. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, 2007. Reproduced: fig. 4-8

  Goswamy, B. N. Manaku of Guler: The Life and Work of Another Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill State. New Delhi: Artibus Asiae Publishers [with] Niyogi Books, 2017. Reproduced: p. 67, cat. C5

  Dixit, Rita. "Tracing Rama's Footsteps: Through Lanka's Landscape." Asian Art: the Newspaper for Collectors, Dealers, Museums and Galleries 24, i. 4 (March 2021): 12–13. Reproduced: p. 12

  Biardeau, Madeleine, and Porcher, Marie-Claude. Rāmāyaṇa: Illustré par les Miniatures Indiennes du XVIe au XIXe Siècle. Pairs: Diane de Selliers, 2024. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 246-247.
• Exhibition History
  Imagining Rama’s Journey. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 10-September 17, 2023).

  Indian Gallery 242 Rotation – April-November 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 10-November 6, 2017).

  The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (organizer) (October 21, 2016-January 15, 2017).

  Hindu and Muslim Art of India. Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC (February 20-April 20, 1985); Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN (May 1-June 1, 1985); J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY (July 10-August 30, 1985).

  Rajput Painting. Asia House, New York, NY (December 3, 1960-January 22, 1961).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Ravana addresses Sita in the garden of Lanka, from Chapters 53 and 54 of the Aranya Kanda (Book of the Forest) of a Ramayana (Rama’s Journey)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1725|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}