Balakrishna Seated on Shesha

This is a reverse glass painting from southern India. According to a description of the painting published on page 50 of the book ‘Reverse Glass Painting in India’ by Professor Anna L. Dallapiccola:
“This is one of the popular themes of the nineteenth-century 'Thanjavur' school of painting. The child Krishna, naked but for his jewellery and with an angavastra draped on his elbows, sits on a throne sucking his toe. As always, he is shown as a chubby child. Part of his hair is tied in a topknot adorned by jewels and the characteristic peacock feather, and part of it falls loose on his shoulders. His back rests on a large bolster, from behind which emerges the five-headed cosmic serpent, Shesha. The child Krishna is flanked by Nanda carrying a lotus flower and Yashoda with a peacock in her arms. In the right-hand corner is a gandharva floating on a cloud, scattering a rain of blossoms on the divine child. The panchapatras are neatly placed on a table in the foreground.”