The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Krishna Steals the Clothes of the Milkmaids and Expounds on the Virtue of Trees, from a Braj Bhagavata Purana
c. 1650
Overall: 21 x 33.5 cm (8 1/4 x 13 3/16 in.)
Location: Not on view
Description
When the milkmaids went to the Yamuna River to bathe, Krishna stealthily took their clothes and hid them in the treetops. Here, the blue-skinned Krishna sits in a tree playing his flute, waiting for the women to come to him. True devotees must shed all worldly inhibitions and approach their god with nothing to hide.The narrow register above shows Krishna expounding on the virtue of trees to the other cowherds. The illustration closely follows the extensive text, written on the back in the vernacular language of Braj, even down to the detail of how they drank the sweet water of the Yamuna River.
- ?–1986Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Walzer, Georgetown, CT, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art1986–The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79. Mentioned: p. 79, no. 223 www.jstor.org
- Krishna and the Path of Grace – Indian Gallery 242 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 14, 2020-March 7, 2021).Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
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Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.175