{
"data": {
"id": 146198,
"accession_number": "1971.88",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Grotesque Dancers Performing, c. 1600. Mughal India. Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper; image: 16 x 9 cm (6 5/16 x 3 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1971.88",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Grotesque Dancers Performing",
"creation_date": "c. 1600",
"creation_date_earliest": 1595,
"creation_date_latest": 1605,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Mughal India"
],
"technique": "gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Indian and Southeast Asian Art",
"collection": "Indian Art",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Image: 16 x 9 cm (6 5/16 x 3 9/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.16,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 0.09,
"width_inch": 3,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Unrelated later Persian text on recto",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311878,
"title": "Dance of the Gods: Indian Art Inspired by Music",
"description": "Dance of the Gods: Indian Art Inspired by Music. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-December 8, 1996).",
"opening_date": "1996-09-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 213499,
"title": "Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art\r\n",
"description": "Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art\r\n. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (organizer) (June 12-August 24, 1997).",
"opening_date": "1997-06-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 290199,
"title": "Indian Gallery 242b Rotation \u2013 November 2016",
"description": "Indian Gallery 242b Rotation \u2013 November 2016. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 7, 2016-April 10, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2016-11-07T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 379206,
"title": "Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art",
"description": "Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art. The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH (organizer) (November 11, 2022-February 5, 2023) https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/beyond-bollywood-2000-years-of-dance-in-art/; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (March 31-July 10, 2023) https://exhibitions.asianart.org/exhibitions/beyond-bollywood-2000-years-of-dance-in-art/.",
"opening_date": "2022-11-11T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Stevens",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(John D. MacDonald, Manchester, NH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?\u20131971",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1971\u2013",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Akbar applied an aromatic paste under his arms, which stained his garment.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This scene from an unidentified manuscript depicts entertainers at the Mughal court. The dancers appear to be from the fringes of society, and they may be intended to depict tribal people or semihuman nature spirits. One is dark skinned with small elephant ears and red-rimmed eyes, wearing a white tiger-skin pelt. The female dancer wears a collar of leaves; the male figure on the right has horns, wears bells, and carries an animal-headed club that appears to be made of bone. An exuberant orchestra provides musical and vocal accompaniment below. While not an imperial production, this painting may reference the Mughal emperor Akbar\u2019s practice of welcoming a wide range of people from all regions and traditions to his court, since he was interested in understanding their customs.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60471969"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1971.88-grotesque-dancers-pe"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 32",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Masselos, Jim, Jackie Menzies, Pratapaditya Pal, and Reis Wenger Flora. Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art. Sydney, Australia: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1997.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 167 pp. 264-266",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "McGill, Forrest. Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in the Arts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan Region. San Francisco, CA: Asian Art Museum, 2022.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 212\u2013213, no. 89",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.88",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_web.jpg",
"width": "642",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "328578",
"filename": "1971.88_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_print.jpg",
"width": "2424",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3726179",
"filename": "1971.88_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_full.tif",
"width": "8355",
"height": "11721",
"filesize": "293818280",
"filename": "1971.88_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "642",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "396082"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt0_print.jpg",
"width": "2424",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "5284950"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt0_full.tif",
"width": "8354",
"height": "11720",
"filesize": "293758184"
},
"date_created": "2022-09-01T10:39:48",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt1_web.jpg",
"width": "642",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "376827"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt1_print.jpg",
"width": "2424",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3889352"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt1_full.tif",
"width": "8354",
"height": "11720",
"filesize": "293759304"
},
"date_created": "2022-09-01T10:53:15",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt2_web.jpg",
"width": "642",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "414457"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt2_print.jpg",
"width": "2424",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "4959616"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt2_full.tif",
"width": "8355",
"height": "11720",
"filesize": "293794344"
},
"date_created": "2022-09-01T10:42:53",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt3_web.jpg",
"width": "608",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "250529"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt3_print.jpg",
"width": "2296",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "2721080"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt3_full.tif",
"width": "4275",
"height": "6331",
"filesize": "81228764"
},
"date_created": "2014-04-17T08:49:15",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt4_web.jpg",
"width": "554",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "270674"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt4_print.jpg",
"width": "2091",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "2677118"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.88/1971.88_alt4_full.tif",
"width": "4229",
"height": "6875",
"filesize": "87257300"
},
"date_created": "2014-04-17T09:42:49",
"annotation": ""
}
],
"creditline": "Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 146198,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1971-06-10T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1595,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1600",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:30:19.235000"
}
}