This luminous painting illustrates an episode from the literary masterpiece the Gita Govinda composed by the poet Jayadeva in the twelfth century. The text and paintings together celebrate the spiritual and erotic love of Krishna and Radha. Here, the Divine Couple embrace, surrounded by gopis, or milkmaids, who express their longing for the Lord. The idyllic pastoral setting and the sweetness of the figure style are hallmarks of the influential style of the painter Nainsukh and his family. It has been suggested that this series may have been created for Maharaja Sansar Chand of Kangra’s first wedding in 1781, when he would have been sixteen years old.
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Title:"Krishna and the Gopis on the Bank of the Yamuna River", Folio from the "Second" or "Tehri Garhwal" Gita Govinda (Song of the Cowherd)
Date:ca. 1775–80
Culture:India
Medium:Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; dark blue border with red inner rules
Dimensions:H. 6 3/8 in. ( 16.2 cm) W. 10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections, 2017
Object Number:2017.736
Krishna and the Gopis on the Bank of the Yamuna River
Krishna stands at the center of the composition intertwined with nine adoring gopis (milkmaids). Six of the besotted women cling to whatever parts of Krishna's youthful body they can reach, while three others surround a nearby tree trunk, waiting for their moment to enter this turbulent "feast of love." The beautifully arranged, syncopated rhythms of the gopis' linked bodies echo the dips and twists of the delightful Kangra Valley, where this scene is set.
Maharaja Sansar Chand (reigned 1775–1823) of Kangra was the probable patron of the celebrated series to which this painting and eight others in the Kronos Collections once belonged (see also cats. 77–81 and 83–85 in this volume). An ardent Vaishnava (worshipper of Vishnu and his many incarnations, including Krishna) and lover and patron of painting, Sansar Chand also commissioned, later in his reign, several magnificent related series: more than one hundred paintings illustrating the exploits of the young Krishna (the "Mody" Bhagavata Purana [The Ancient Story of God]); about one hundred paintings illustrating the Ramayana (The Adventures of Rama) (see cat. 87 in this volume); about forty paintings illustrating verses from the Sat Sai (Seven Hundred Verses) of Bihari (see cats. 89–91 in this volume); illustrations of the story of Nala and Damayanti (see cat. 94 in this volume); a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies) of about eighty paintings; a Baramasa (Months of the Year) illustrating the months of the year; and many other works.[1] In short, the marahaja commissioned the classic series that any self-respecting Hindu prince must have had in his library, as well as a number of lavish sets illustrating the exploits of his great heroes, the Vaishnava gods Krishna and Rama.
To accomplish this task and to enlarge the rather spotty court atelier he must have inherited, Sansar Chand imported a large group of talented artists from the neighboring kingdom of Guler, including a number of Nainsukh's sons and relations (For Nainsukh, see cats. 71 and 72 in this volume). Indeed, during the Sansar Chand period, it is very difficult to distinguish Kangra and Guler painting. For all intents, in style they might as well be the same thing.
Maharaja Sansar Chand was probably the greatest political and military ruler from the Punjab Hills. During the height of his power, his Kangra "empire" controlled most of the region. Sansar Chand's period of grandeur lasted until about 1806, when invading Gurkhas from Nepal put an end to his dreams of dominance. The maharaja lost most of his empire to them and later to the invading Sikhs, yet soldiered on in what remained of his kingdom, commissioning paintings, until his death in 1823.
W.G. Archer believes the present series was made in about 1780 to celebrate Sansar Chand's first wedding, in about 1781,[2] when he would have been sixten years old.
Terence McInerney, Steven Kossak, and Navina Haidar in [McInerney 2016]
Footnotes:
1. Archer, W[illiam] G[eorge]. Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills: A Survey and History of Pahari Miniature Painting. London and New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, vol. 1, pp. 291–97, 1973.
2. Ibid., pp. 292–93.
Krishna and the Gopis on the Bank of the Yamuna
This painted vision comes from a lauded series of illustrations to the Gita Govinda (Song of the Cowherd) believed to have been made to celebrate the wedding of Maharaja Sansar Chand of Kangra. A twelfth-century composition in Sanskrit by the poet Jayadeva, the text centers on the courtship and divine love of the cowherd Krishna and Radha, who appear here in an embrace, surrounded by eight gopis (milkmaids) whose postures express their yearning for Krishna. The great Pahari master Nainsukh pioneered this lyrical and refined style, which became the hallmark of the Kangra and Guler schools. The work joins the many important Indian paintings given by Steven Kossak to the Museum.
Navina Najat Haidar in [Gifts of Art 2020]
Inscription: Inscribed on the reverse: - In black ink with four lines of Sanskrit text written in Devanagari script: Gita Govinda, part 1, stanza 46 (for an English translation, see Miller, Barbara Stoler, ed. and trans. Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, Indian Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977, p. 77). - Inscribed in black ink with a three-line summary of the text in the Pahari dialect of Panjabi written in Devanagari script.
Private Collection , California (until 1992); sale, Sotheby's, New York , December 5, 1992, no. 162 (to Kossak); Steven M. Kossak , New York (1992–2017; gifted to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016, 82.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India," December 22, 2018–July 28, 2019.
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