AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RASIKAPRIYA SERIES: KRISHNA AND THE GOPIS IN THE YAMUNA RIVER


BIKANER, CIRCA 1680Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Image: 7 1/8 x 6 1/4 in. (18 x 16 cm);Folio: 11 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. (28.5 x 21 cm)
|Between hopeful cow-herders (gopas) on the left bank and reluctant wives (gopis) on the right bank, willing gopis frolic in India's sacred Yumana river around Krishna and Radha in a tender embrace. A closely related composition from an earlier Bikaner Bhagavata Purana series is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Topsfield, In the Realm of Gods and Kings, New York, 2004, p.151, no.58). Published Ludwig Habighorst, Blumen – Baeume – Goettergaerten, Ragaputra Edition Koblenz, 2011, p.88, fig.63. Harsha Dehejia, A Festival of Krishna, New Delhi, 2008, p.177. Provenance Bikaner Royal Library Private German Collection