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Bhagavata Purana illustration: defeated and humbled Indra supplicates Shri Nathji. Nathdwara, circa 1840. Gouache and gold on paper. 31cm by 22cm.

A Bhagavata Purana illustration depicting Krishna in the form of Shri Nathji.  In the upper centre we see Shri Nathji with Nanda, his white-bearded stepfather to his right, with what must be his stepmother Yashoda beside him.  At the other side is an unknown male with two gopas or cowherds beside him.  Above, we see Mount Govardhan, with at the right a water-tank presumably containing (the Krishna-subdued) serpent Kaliyadamana.  Below Shri Nathji we see the god Indra and his vehicle, the seven-trunked elephant Airavata with howdah and mahout.  Indra donates cows in supplication to Shri Nathji, having been humiliated into doing so by defeat in a battle over supremacy, in which he failed to win back the people of the mountain by means of force (being the god of storms, he tried to stop their new affilaition to Krishna by sending deluge after deluge - Krishna simply uprooted the mountain to use as an umbrella for them!).

Provenance: bought at Christie's in 1996.

Surface with occasional buckled areas. Six pin-head wormholes - one is in the jama of Nanda, below his sash, one is below Indra's right foot (to our left) in the green meadow, and four are in the lower yellow inner border.  Cropping to the outer red border on its right.