Baby Krishna Asking for Butter from Yashoda, from a Kalighat album

c. 1890

Baby Krishna Asking for Butter from Yashoda, from a Kalighat album, c. 1890. Eastern India, Kolkata, Kalighat. Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper; secondary support: 48 x 30 cm (18 7/8 x 11 13/16 in.); painting only: 45.7 x 28 cm (18 x 11 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward 2003.112 As the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, whose followers recognize as the deity who creates and destroys the universe, Krishna was always eating. Like time itself, which ultimately consumes everything, Krishna eats so much his foster mother Yashoda cannot believe it. When she looks in his mouth, she sees the cosmos and realizes he is not an ordinary baby. Kalighat artists made metallic pigment out of tin to look like silver.