Krishna dressed as Radha seeks her forgiveness for his philandering ways, India, Bilaspur, circa 1700-20

This playful composition depicts a blue-skinned Krishna dressed in women’s clothes. He is surrounded by a group of gopis who are adorning him with jewels. Other gopis are playing music and dancing around him. On the right, Krishna is depicted for a second time dressed in a similar manner. He bends forward about to touch Radha’s feet to ask for her forgiveness because of his philandering ways. An upset Radha looks away as though in no mood to engage with Krishna. She holds Krishna’s flute in her right hand. These scenes are being played out on the banks of the river Yamuna.

The present painting is probably an episode from the Krishna Lila which portrays the divine love-play between Krishna and Radha. This sometimes includes scenarios of role-reversal and the lovers exchanging clothes and identities. A painted folio from Mewar dated circa 1725-35 depicting various episodes from the Krishna Lila including Radha and Krishna dressed in each other’s clothes, and Krishna dressed as Radha asking for her forgiveness while she pretends to be him, is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.71.1.11). A further painting where Radha and Krishna have exchanged their clothes and jewels, painted in Kangra or Garhwal circa 1825, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (25.536). A depiction of Krishna disguised as a woman approaching Radha, painted in Bundi circa 1770, is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1994-148-393).

The tall, elegant figures in the present painting depicted with high foreheads and long noses suggests that the work was executed in Bilaspur in the early eighteenth century. The figures find comparison with those in four illustrations from a Madhavanala Kamakandala series from Bilaspur dated to circa 1720 which are in the Cleveland Museum of Art (2018.91-95).