Krishna the butter thief
Mandi, circa 1770-80
gouache and gold on paper, small pieces of coloured foil on paint surface at various points to represent Krishna and Balarama's jewellery, red border
258 x 186 mm.
Footnotes:
For the same subject depicted in a Mandi painting of circa 1820, see Christie's New York, Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Works of Art, 23rd March 2022, lot 476. There all the participants are portrayed as slightly older and taller, and the butter pots hang from beneath an elegant Mughal marble archway instead of the tiled hut roof seen in our painting; our artist also adds two monkeys who are as playful as the crowd of cowherds at lower right.

For a related scene of the cowherds offering Krishna flowers, out of doors, with a similarly beseeching crowd of gopis, see W. G. Archer, Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills, vol. I, p. 359, Mandi no. 35; the same painting was offered at Christie's, Arts of India, 23rd September 2005, lot 73.
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