Two nuns teaching lay women, colophon page of folio 167 (recto) from a Kalpa-sutra and Story of Kalakacharya

Description

Wearing white billowing monastic robes, the two nuns contrast with the beautifully adorned laywomen, who wear elaborately patterned textiles and jewelry. Jains commissioned illuminated manuscripts as a way to accrue religious merit, and they would have images of themselves at prayer inserted into the image cycles like this as signs of their patronage.

Provenance

Sanghavina Padano Bhandar, Patan, India; (Sander L. Feldman, Washington, DC, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1971); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1971–)

Two nuns teaching lay women, colophon page of folio 167 (recto) from a Kalpa-sutra and Story of Kalakacharya

[]

1278

Accession Number

1971.126.a

Medium

Gum tempera and ink on palm leaf

Dimensions

Overall: 5.4 x 32.1 cm (2 1/8 x 12 5/8 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund