The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Vertically oriented painting depicting a man kneeling and touching his head to the feet of another man, standing in a faintly blue tunic and holding an open book. A tree with faintly green leaves arcs behind him in front of a rocky, brown landscape. In the lower right a jackal-like animal stares at a bowl by kneeling man, painted with a signature, more Persian text above the scene (see "Inscription"). Floral shapes border the scene.

A mendicant bowing before a holy man, from the Prince Salim Album

c. 1585; inner border added in Allahabad c. 1602; outer border added probably 1900s

Basavana

(Indian, active c. 1560–1600)
Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Page: 32.7 x 21.1 cm (12 7/8 x 8 5/16 in.); Painting: 13.6 x 7.5 cm (5 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.)
Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.296
Location: 242B Indian Painting

Did You Know?

The dog stares hungrily at the mendicant’s alms bowl, with the artist’s signature.

Description

As the Mughal atelier grew into the 1580s, Indian artists become increasingly adept at incorporating Persian styles with a new dimensionality and naturalism that Akbar promoted, possibly based on his appreciation of European prints and paintings. Here, a sincere holy man wears robes tinged lightly with blue. He stands beneath a tree in the wilderness with a loyal jackal by his side. A devotee touches his head to his feet. The artist’s tiny signature is written on the alms bowl. Connoisseurs of Persian art in the Islamic world praised an artist’s virtuoso ability to work on a microscopic scale.
  • mid-1900s–May 1967
    (Dikran Kelekian [1868–1951], New York, NY, sold to Ralph Benkaim)
    1967–2013
    Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection
    2013–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Hodgkin, Howard and Terence McInerney. Indian Drawing: An Exhibition. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1983. cat. no. 52
    Wright, Elaine and Susan Stronge. Muraqqaʻ Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Alexandria, VA; Hanover: Art Services International; Distributed by University Press of New England, 2008. App. 1:12 (reference)
    Aitken, Molly Emma. The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court Painting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Reproduced: fig. 1.1
    Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. 10, p. 197
  • Indian Painting of the 1500s: Continuities and Transformations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 15, 2025-January 11, 2026).
    Art and Stories from Mughal India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 31-October 23, 2016).
    Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 245). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 2, 2014-January 5, 2015).
    Indian Drawing. Hayward Gallery, London, England; Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, England; Bolton Museum of Art Gallery, Bolton, England; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, England (1983).
  • {{cite web|title=A mendicant bowing before a holy man, from the Prince Salim Album|url=false|author=Basavana|year=c. 1585; inner border added in Allahabad c. 1602; outer border added probably 1900s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2013.296