Todi Ragini, from a Ragamala Series

Unknown artist, c. 1755

Download2199 × 3400 px View on a wall Edit

Medium: Gum tempera and gold on paper
Size: Page: 28.6 x 19 cm (11 1/4 x 7 1/2 in.); Miniature: 23.5 x 15.3 cm (9 1/4 x 6 in.)
Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Murshidabad, 18th century
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Ragamala paintings were recognized as being associated with a season and time of day. Evoking a late morning in spring, here a young woman beguiles deer from the woodlands with her music to prevent them from destroying the crops in the field. The saturated hues and romantic idealization of the scene continue idioms begun in the Mughal court that were disseminated to regional centers of patronage such as Murshidabad. The inscription at the top of this page identifies the name, ragini todi, in Arabic script, which suggests that this ragamala series was made for a Muslim patron.