Vasanta Vilasa (a poem on Spring)

Object Details

• School/Tradition

  Pre-Mughal school

• Label

  This unique scroll, over thirty-six feet long, is filled with poems and illustrations celebrating springtime, when Kama, god of love, evokes passion in the hearts of all. In eighty-four verses, the poem employs lush verbal imagery to evoke the beauty of spring, and the paintings closely follow the text. The spirited poses and angular lines of the body, the pert faces with the stylized projecting eye, and the brilliant colors of the paintings are typical of Western Indian painting in the pre-Mughal period.

• Provenance

  To 1932

  N. C. Mehta, Lucknow, India to 1932 [1]

  From 1932

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from N. C. Mehta, Lucknow, India in 1932 [2]

  Notes:

  [1] Object file, undated folder sheet note.

  [2] See note 1. See also Freer Gallery of Art Purchase List file, Collections Management Office.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Body Image (October 14, 2017 - ongoing)

  Colonel Hanna's Pictures (August 21, 1999 to February 6, 2000)

  Masterworks of Indian Painting (December 13, 1997 to June 13, 1998)

  South and South East Asian Art (May 9, 1993 to February 7, 2000)

  The Arts of South Asia (May 13, 1985 to December 2, 1985)

  The Imperial Image: Painting for the Mughal Court (September 25, 1981 to 30 March 1982)

  Indian Art (January 1, 1963 to January 28, 1981)

  Untitled Exhibition, South Asian Art, Gallery 8 (July 15, 1958 to January 1, 1963)

  Untitled Exhibition, South Asian Painting, 1955 (October 24, 1955 to November 28, 1955)

  Untitled Exhibition, South Asian Paintings and Sculpture (October 2, 1947 to February 25, 1956)

  Untitled Exhibition, South Asian Paintings, Gallery 7 (January 10, 1945 to October 2, 1947)

  Untitled Exhibition, South Asian Paintings, Gallery 4 (May 5, 1933 to January 9, 1945)

• Previous custodian or owner

  N. C. Mehta

• Origin

  Gujarat state, India

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Manuscript

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

  This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1400s

• Name

  Mehta, N. C.

• Place

  Gujarat state, India

• Topic

  Ka?ma (Hindu deity), South Asian and Himalayan Art, Art, Illumination, Poetry, Spring

• Culture

  Himalayan peoples, South Asians

• Object Type

  Manuscripts