Krishna's Longing for Radha, from a Gita Govinda

A dark forest on the bank of the Yamuna, and in it Krishna seven times over: leaning on a tree, sitting, looking out, getting up again. The painter has shown waiting as a sequence. In the upper right, Radha in yellow is still talking it over with her confidante.

The source is the Gita Govinda, a twelfth-century Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva about Radha, Krishna and the gopis of Vrindavan. Pahari painters returned to it again and again. In the Kangra hills, under the patronage of Maharaja Sansar Chand, it became one of the main subjects.

The series is named after Lambagraon, and the museum’s record lists the Raja of Lambagraon as an earlier owner. The trees are drawn leaf by leaf and the river is a single band of grey along the bottom.