- Title
- Krishna and Gopis Celebrating the Holi Festival
- Date Made
- circa 1700-1720
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- 8 3/16 x 7 1/8 in. (20.8 x 18.1 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1999.127.23
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
The Holi Festival in India, celebrated in the Hindu month of Phalguna (February-March), heralds the arrival of spring, the end of winter, and the divine love of Radha and Krishna. The popular festival engenders communal revelry with celebrators in a joyous frenzy spraying everyone with red-colored water shot from oversize syringes, throwing balloons filled with colored water at each other, and pelting each other with colored powder. Merrymakers carrying drums and other musical instruments wander the streets singing, dancing, and enjoying delicacies.
Here, the blue-skinned Krishna shoots a stream of red water with a large syringe onto a group of gopis (herdswomen). Another gopi is refilling her syringe from a large vat of red oblations. Krishna and the gopis are covered with red water stains. In a palace bedchamber behind them a king-size bed prepared with cushions, garlands, and pan (betelnut quids) symbolizes their ensuing rapturous tryst. The header is inscribed with poetic verses, which have yet to be translated. See also M.76.149.2, M.79.252.7, and M.81.280.2.
