King Siddharta Being Anointed: Folio from a Kalpasutra Manuscript

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The enthroned King Siddharta, having bathed and refreshed himself, is being anointed with a paste forehead mark (tilak) denoting nobility by a family member, possibly Queen Trisala herself. The paintings from this manuscript are uniformly conventional, with golden figures framed in red nimbuses against an ultramarine ground. Line is skillfully controlled, and great play is made of the designs on the clothing, which accord with surviving examples of fifteenth-century cloth and extend our knowledge of Gujarati textile design.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art