WishlistCart

Home › Glossary › Art and print terms › Tanjore painting

Tanjore painting

Tanjore (Thanjavur) painting is a classical South Indian painting style from the town of Thanjavur, done as panel paintings on wooden planks.

panel painting

Tanjore painting, schematic. Shapes are drawn for illustration.

What the sources say

PointDetailSource
EmbellishmentGold leaf and gems inlaid in selected areas; glass beads and semi-precious stonesWikipedia, National Museum
LookRich vivid colours and a simple iconic compositionWikipedia, National Museum
SubjectsMostly Hindu deities and saints, serving as devotional iconsWikipedia
PeriodWikipedia dates the Maratha court origin to 1676 to 1855; the National Museum page gives no datesWikipedia

For wall art

The inlaid gold does not survive a flat print the way it looks in person, so a reproduction shows the composition and colour, not the raised work.

Where the sources stop

Wikipedia gives the Maratha court period; the National Museum page as fetched gives no dates. We found no Thanjavur-specific source for how the ground is prepared, so we say nothing about it.

Sources

Figures from these pages are paraphrased; each page was fetched and read on 2026-11-12. Where two sources differ, both are shown.

Related pages