Indian Pichvai or Devotional Shrine Hanging

Green meadow crowded with dancers, cattle, an elephant and one blue-skinned figure.

This pichvai or devotional shrine hanging is from India, and dates to the 19th century. It is pigment & cotton. In Hindi, pich means back and vai means hanging, an apt description of large decorative paintings hung behind tables or mats holding offerings and statues of Krishna. Wide painted cloth with a red border and a green field, where women in bright dress stand in a row near a central dark-skinned figure on a small stage. Cattle, a cart, an elephant and a river of lotuses fill the lower part. It is 100 inches wide and 104 high.

Every corner is busy, and every animal has a job.