The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented painting of a figure with light skin tone holding out and looking at a lotus flower in their left hand, standing in a yellow-brown desert landscape. They wear a purple-pink dress and blue cloak, brown hair looped into an up-do with a white feather above their forehead. In their right hand, at their side they hold a khuuchir, a string instrument with a circular body and narrow neck thrice it's length.

A female figure standing in a landscape holding a four-stringed “khuuchir” and a lotus

c. 1590

Mughal India, court of Akbar

(reigned 1556–1605)
Gum tempera and gold on paper
Page: 31.6 x 20.7 cm (12 7/16 x 8 1/8 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 2013.311
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The four strings of the woman’s khuuchir would have been made from silk.

Description

Standing over flowering sprigs, holding a lotus like a scepter, the figure seems to magically impart fertility to a desert. In pan-Indian religious iconography (system of visual symbols that identify a figure), the lotus is held by the goddess of good fortune, prosperity, and abundance, who is frequently associated with ideal kingship. The stringed instrument recalls the Indian goddess of learning and music, but here it is of a Mongolian type, as is the feather in her crown. Her garments are reminiscent of those worn by biblical and classical figures in European engravings. This painting combines Indian, European, and Mongolian references.
  • April 24, 1996
    (Sotheby’s, London, England Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 24 April 1996 sale, lot 40)
    –2013
    Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection
    2013–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • 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. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 200, figure 4.60, pp. 312–313, cat. no. 16.
  • Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 14-June 8, 2025).
    Nature Supernatural. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 22, 2023-March 3, 2024).
  • {{cite web|title=A female figure standing in a landscape holding a four-stringed “khuuchir” and a lotus|url=false|author=|year=c. 1590|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2013.311