VARMA 2024.260

Tilotana is a celestial nymph or apsara in Hindu mythology, said to have been created by Brahma from the finest elements of the universe. Celebrated for her incomparable beauty, she was sent to incite discord between two demon brothers who had become invincible through a boon. Captivated by her, the brothers turned on each other in a fatal struggle. Her story appears in early Vedic literature, including the Rigveda, and is expanded in the Mahābhārata, where she embodies both divine allure and the cosmic strategy to restore balance through the undoing of demonic power. This chromolithograph, produced by a rival press, closely copies Ravi Varma’s original oleograph. The archetypal female form with its upraised arm and gathering folds of cloth suggests Greco-Roman marble sculptures and ideals of beauty. This identical pose initially appeared in Ravi Varma’s painting Mohini Playing with the Ball c.1894.