Unknown painter at Bijapur (called the Dublin Painter)
Yogini with a Mynah Bird
An ascetic in a princess's clothes, mynah in hand.
- Artist
- Unknown painter at Bijapur (called the Dublin Painter)
- Date
- Early 17th century
- Medium
- Pigment, ink and gold on paper
- Where it is
- Chester Beatty, Dublin (In 11A.31)
- Kind
- Deccani painting
A tall, thin woman stands in a garden of lotus and peony with a mynah perched on her raised hand. Her skin is ash-grey and her hair is tied in a topknot, both marks of a yogini. Yet she wears a red peshwaj, a gold dupatta and heavy gold jewellery. Behind her rise Deccan rocks, a hill and a small palace under a gold sky. Panels of Persian verse frame the picture on all four sides.
Scholars do not agree on who she is: a noblewoman who has left the palace for the ascetic life, or something darker. The art historian Mark Zebrowski read her as a sorceress and the bird as a bad omen.
The painting is dated to the early seventeenth century and is presumed to have been made for the court of Ibrahim Adil Shah II at Bijapur. The painter’s name is lost; he is called the Dublin Painter, after this picture’s home.
