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Keshava Das's "Rasikapriya": The Shy Nayika

Indian, Mughal
Mughal period
about 1615
Object Place: Northern India

Medium/Technique Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions 11.9 x 12.8 cm (4 11/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
Credit Line Denman Waldo Ross Collection
Accession Number15.61b
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia
ClassificationsBooks and manuscripts
Keshava Das composed the romantic poem called the Rasikapriya ("Connoisseur's Delights") in 1591 in the Central Indian kingdom of Orchha. Written in Braj Basha, it is an important work of Indian vernacular literature. Extremely popular even within the first few decades of its writing, the Rasikapriya was illustrated many times by artists of differing backgrounds. The copy to which this page belongs, which is colloquially known as the "Boston" Rasikapriya because there are 29 pages in the collection of the MFA, was produced in the early seventeenth century. The relatively naturalistic style of the illustrations and the vertical format of the pages suggests that it was created within the orbit of the Mughal court, and the vernacular text and its content - about Krishna and his lovers - suggest a Hindu patron. Approximately 60 pages from this dispersed manuscript are known today.

ProvenanceBy 1915, Denman Waldo Ross (b. 1853 - d. 1935), Cambridge, MA; 1915, gift of Ross to the MFA. (Accession date: January 7, 1915)