- Title
- Sohni Swims to Meet Her Lover Mahinwal
- Date Made
- circa 1750-1775
- Period
- 18th century
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, silver, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 9 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. (25.08 x 22.54 cm); Image: 8 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. (20.96 x 18.42 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1999.127.3
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Sohni and Mahinwal were two ill-fated young lovers who are said to have lived during the early 17th century. Mahinwal, whose given name was Mirza Izzat Beg, was a prince from Turkestan who was traveling with a merchant caravan. It stopped near the Panjabi town of Gujrat, where Izzat Beg chanced upon a young woman named Sohni (Beautiful) minding her father's pottery shop. Izzat Beg was so smitten by her that he abandoned the caravan to remain with Sohni, who soon came to reciprocate his ardor. Izzat Beg then managed to be hired to tend the family's buffaloes across the river. Hence, his epithet, Mahinwal (Buffalo Herder). Their clandestine affair was discovered and Sohni was quickly married to a fellow potter's son. The couple later resumed their affair and every night Sohni visited Mahinwal by swimming across the river using a large baked earthenware pot as a float. But Sohni's sister-in-law learned of their deceit and replaced Sohni’s baked pot with an unfired one. It dissolved at midstream and Mahinwal leaped into the river to save his beloved, but the current was too strong and the lovers sank into legend.
Sohni floats on the overturned pot for her tryst with Mahinwal, who is unusually portrayed as a nobleman in a bedchamber pavilion. The inscription states, "In using the unbaked small pot kept under the tree [when Sohni would] descend into the river, thus would be the cause of her death. A leaf from Sohani [Sohni]." (Translation by Naval Krishna.) See also M.72.2.1.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya; Markel, Stephen; Leoshko, Janice. Pleasure Gardens of the Mind: Indian Paintings from the Jane Greenough Green Collection. Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd.: Los Angeles, 1993.
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Indian Paintings from Staff Collections. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973.
- Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. A Pot-pourri of Indian Art. Bombay: Marg Publications, 1988.
