Scenes of Krishna, Radha, and her companion, and the poet Jayadeva

A 1629 miniature painting from the Mewar school, attributed to Sahibdin—one of the principal painters linked with the court of Udaipur—shows scenes of Krishna, Radha and her companion, and the poet Jayadeva. This painting depicts episodes from the Gitagovinda, a renowned 12th-century Sanskrit poem written by Jayadeva and which tells the story of the passionate relationship between the Hindu god Krishna and Radha, his beloved. The Ashmolean has identified this painting as part of a set that had been dispersed and which was Sahibdin's very first commission when he was appointed as court painter to Maharana Jagat Singh I of Udaipur. The painting includes a number of successive scenes from the story all within the same visual space. Radha tells her female companion, or sakhi, about her meetings with Krishna. In the painting Krishna is seen having a conversation with Radha, embracing her and decorating her braided hair with flowers. A strange feature of the narrative is that it implies Krishna might be mistaking Radha for her companion, with whom he is at that moment in love. At the lower part of the picture Jayadeva is shown reciting his verses while playing the cymbals, thus directly connecting the visual image with its literary origin. The painting shows off Sahibdin's early mature style, especially his skill in turning poetry into a sequence of linked visual scenes; the way it combines human figures, narrative action and a decorative landscape is in keeping with the particular storytelling tradition of Mewar miniature painting.