Label, advertisement, print (BM 2008,3020.37)

Chromolithograph pictorial label used for the advertisement and sale of bales of cloth and individual fabric lengths; printed on paper. A scene from the Mahābhārata in two registers; in the upper register, a king is seated, leaning against a bolster, and surrounded by attendants and courtiers. In the lower half of the image a game of pachisi is being played. Draupadi, the wife of all five Pandava brothers in the Mahābhārata, is presented to the game where Yudhishthira, the king of Hastinapura, had gambled away all his material wealth. He offered his wife in a bet; Draupadi prays to Krishna for protection while a court attendant attempts to remove her sari. This event was one of several instigating factors in the Mahabharata war.