Description
The viewer is cut off from Lanka by the surrounding sea and the city’s golden walls in this expansive composition probably intended for courtly display This choice of perspective cleverly emphasizes the captivity of the Sita, faithful wife of the hero Rama. She kneels beneath an ashoka tree, guarded by demonesses. The princess’s abductor, the 10-headed and 20-armed demon lord of Lanka, Ravana, appears twice in the image. In the palace, he consults his council of minions. At the right, he hears Sita’s refusal to marry him. Ravana neither harms her, nor sets her free.
Provenance
Raja Raghunath Singh of Guler; Ananda K. Coomaraswamy [1877–1947]; George P. Bickford [1901–1991] and Clara Louise Gehring Bickford [1903–1985], Cleveland Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art (?–1966); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1966–)
Ravana addresses Sita in the garden of Lanka, from Chapters 53 and 54 of the Aranya Kanda (Book of the Forest) of a Ramayana (Rama’s Journey)
c. 1725
Accession Number
1966.143
Medium
Gum tempera, gold, and silver on paper
Dimensions
Painting: 55.5 x 79 cm (21 7/8 x 31 1/8 in.); Overall: 56.3 x 81 cm (22 3/16 x 31 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of George P. Bickford
