1900s
Ink and color on paper
Overall: 36.2 x 27 cm (14 1/4 x 10 5/8 in.)
Gift of Pamela Elizabeth Ward in loving memory of her parents, William E. and Evelyn Svec Ward 2005.86
Village women of rural northeastern India create the distinctive paintings known as "Madhubani."
This goddess holds a lotus flower and a discus, along with two other unidentified objects. Historically, Madhubani paintings were murals created with brushes made of bamboo and cotton. They ornamented domestic spaces on the occasion of a festival or rite of passage in a woman's life, such as a birth or a wedding. In the wake of a drought in 1966, the All India Handicrafts Board encouraged women of the Mithila region make paintings on paper, so they could sell them and help support their communities.
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