What is Tanjore painting? Gold foil, gesso and the Thanjavur court

Tanjore painting is a style of religious painting from Thanjavur, a town in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tanjore is the older English spelling of the same name. In a Tanjore painting the gods stand in raised shapes covered in gold foil, with coloured glass and stones pressed into the surface. This guide explains where the style came from, which rulers supported it, how a painting is built up in layers, and how it differs from its close neighbour, Mysore painting.

What is Tanjore painting?

The National Museum in New Delhi describes Tanjore paintings as simple, icon-like pictures with vivid colours and gold foil laid over large areas of gesso. Gesso is a paste that painters build up into raised shapes. The museum says the paintings are set with glass beads and semi-precious stones, and that they serve as devotional icons, which means pictures made for worship.

The local name is palagai oviyam. D'source, a design learning site whose Tanjore pages were documented at the National Institute of Design in Bengaluru, uses this name and sums up the art in three words: gods, gold and gemstones. Another D'source page calls Tanjore paintings panel paintings made on solid wood planks.

Two details help you recognise the style. The first is the gold, which sits on raised areas and shines when light moves across it. The second is the face. D'source points to fine lines, soft washes of colour on the skin, and kayal vizhi eyes, the fish-shaped eyes that Tamil poets wrote about.

Where Tanjore painting came from

The story begins with the fall of a great South Indian empire. The Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad explains that after the Vijayanagara empire fell at the battle of Talikota in 1565, its artists moved to nearby places, and it names Mysore, Tanjore and Surpur. The museum calls Tanjore painting an offshoot of the Vijayanagara school, and says the same about Mysore painting.

At Thanjavur, the painters found new patrons. D'source dates the art form to 1600 AD, during the rule of the Nayaks. It lists the families that ruled Tanjore over the centuries: the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Vijayanagara empire, the Nayaks, the Marathas and the British. Thanjavur's own district administration says the town's palace was built partly by the Nayaks and partly by the Marathas. It adds that the Saraswathi Mahal Library, which holds manuscripts, maps and paintings, was built up by both families over time.

D'source describes the painting style as a mix of Nayak, Maratha and British elements. The Nayak period gave it its start. Under the Maratha rajas, and in the years of British power in South India, the style took the form most people know today.

For the rulers who came long before the Nayaks, and who built the great temple at Thanjavur, read our guide to the Chola dynasty.

The Maratha rajas and Serfoji II

The Marathas came to Thanjavur from western India, where Shivaji had founded their kingdom. Our guide to Shivaji and the Maratha kings tells that story.

The best-known Maratha ruler of Thanjavur is Serfoji II, also called Sarabhoji. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) says he was born in 1777 into the Maratha royal clan and was adopted in 1787. The British installed him as king of Thanjavur in 1798, and he ruled until his death in 1832, with his power limited to the fort of Thanjavur and the land around it. LACMA holds a painting of a royal procession with Serfoji II, made around 1800 to 1810 in opaque watercolour and gold on paper.

Serfoji II lived at the same time as a great patron of Mysore painting. The Salar Jung Museum says Krishnaraja Wodeyar III of Mysore, who revived older styles of painting at his court, was a contemporary of Serfoji II of Thanjavur. For how painters at Thanjavur portrayed Serfoji II and the rajas before him, see Maratha court portraits.

How a Tanjore painting is made

A Tanjore painting is built up in layers, and the base takes more time than the paint. D'source records the steps as they are followed by painters in Thanjavur today:

1. The board. The painter takes a wooden board of the size needed and places a sheet of cardboard on it. D'source says painters traditionally chose jackfruit wood, because termites leave it alone and it does not rot easily.
2. The cloth. Cotton fabric is stretched over the board and pasted down with a local gum.
3. The base coat. The cloth is covered with a paste made from a chalk powder and glue. Three coats go on over a span of ten days.
4. The sketch. The painter draws the figure, often using templates of religious scenes.
5. The raised work. A second paste of chalk powder, a local stone and gum from the karuvela tree is used to build up raised shapes. Coloured glass or kundan stones are pressed into it.
6. The gold. A thin sheet of gold foil is laid on each raised area, cut to shape, and glued down. In summer it takes three hours to dry. D'source says artisans once made the foil themselves, by beating a small piece of gold on animal skin.
7. The colour. Poster colour, mooligai colour (made from leaves, roots and bark), or a mix of both, goes on in several coats, and each coat dries before the next.
8. The frame. The finished painting is set in a teak frame with clear glass on top.

D'source says older paintings used natural colours made from flowers and stones, with gold used to pick out clothing and jewellery.

What Tanjore paintings show

Most Tanjore paintings are pictures of gods. The National Museum in New Delhi says the subjects are mostly Hindu gods, goddesses and saints, and that painters also showed episodes from the Puranas, the Sthala-puranas and other religious texts. The Puranas are old collections of stories about the gods, and a Sthala-purana tells the story of one temple.

D'source links the rise of the style to the spread of Vaishnavism, the worship of the god Vishnu, in South India. It says most themes come from stories of Vishnu, and that the image painters return to most is Baby Krishna holding a pot of butter. Another D'source page adds the crowning of Rama, and Vishnu with the goddess Lakshmi, with animals as smaller figures.

Tanjore painters also made portraits of rulers. D'source says the art began with pictures of the gods and later extended to royal portraiture. Painters at Thanjavur also painted on sheets of glass. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds a portrait of Raja Sarabhoji (Serfoji II), painted in gouache and gold leaf on glass around 1860.

Tanjore and Mysore painting: how to tell them apart

Tanjore and Mysore painting share a history. Both grew from the Vijayanagara school, both use gesso and gold, and both mostly show Hindu gods. Our guide to Mysore painting covers the Mysore side in full, and compares the colours and brushwork of the two styles. Three more differences are worth knowing.

The base. Tanjore paintings are made on a wooden board covered with cloth, and D'source calls them panel paintings on solid wood planks. The Salar Jung Museum says Mysore painters worked on paperboard as well as on cloth pasted on wood.

The glass and stones. The National Museum in New Delhi lists glass beads and semi-precious stones as part of Tanjore painting, and D'source says they are pressed into the raised paste before the gold goes on. The Salar Jung Museum's account of Mysore painting describes gesso and gold foil, with no set stones.

The legal name. Each style has its own entry on the Government of India's list of registered geographical indications. A geographical indication is a legal name for a product that comes from one place. Thanjavur Painting is application number 47, filed on 4 January 2006, under Tamil Nadu. Mysore Traditional Paintings is application number 32, filed on 31 March 2005, under Karnataka. Both are listed as handicrafts.

The Victoria and Albert Museum points out that sorting old South Indian gold-leaf paintings into one school can be hard. In a 2024 article on its collection, the museum says the Surapura style shares gesso, bright colour and gold leaf with the Mysore and Tanjore traditions, and that some of its religious paintings could belong to either the Thanjavur or the Mysuru school.

Tanjore painting and royal pet portraits

Purrealism has 15 royal portrait styles, and nine of them come from Indian courts. A true Tanjore painting is made by hand on a wooden board, with raised paste and hand-cut gold foil, so the site has no Tanjore style. The closest style on the site is Mysore Royal, from the court that shared Tanjore's Vijayanagara roots. The Mysore Royal portrait in the gallery shows a black labrador as Mysore royalty, in a saffron turban and holding a gold sceptre. Maratha King and Chola Warrior are also on the list, named for the two ruling families whose history runs through Thanjavur.

You can choose any of these styles for your own dog or cat in the portrait studio, from one clear photo of up to 5 MB.