Young Krishna and His Friends Steal Butter (painting, recto), folio from a Bhagavata Purana series

The painting depicts the blue-skinned Hindu god Krishna multiple times in the act of stealing butter. Krishna’s childhood mischiefs are popular tales from the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana, particularly where the women of Vrindavan kept the butter they had prepared from Krishna’s reach by hanging the pots from the ceilings out of his reach. Yet, Krishna could always reach them by climbing on platforms and with a little help from his friends. Krishna is accompanied even by monkeys in this painting, swift and agile to climb anywhere to reach their favorite treat. At the lower right, we see Krishna's mother Yashoda catching him red-handed, asking him to open his mouth which is full of butter. The folio belongs to the so-called 'Tula Ram' Bhagavata Purana series, produced during the 17th century in Gujarat, representing events from the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana. The name is derived from the last known person to have possession of the entire series, Tula Ram, a mid-twentieth-century dealer from Delhi. Originally known to be seventy in number, a key characteristic of the paintings from this series is the freedom of expression evident in the style of rendering the figures and their surroundings, possibly indicating the work of several artists. Other folios from the same Bhagavata Purana series in the Harvard Art Museum’s collection are objects 1960.53, 1974.129, 1995.119. Gujarati Style.