The spring "Festival of Colors" has been a popular subject of Indian painting for centuries; here is a detail of a relatively large panoramic scene produced at the court of the Nawabs of Avadh in present-day Uttar Pradesh in the 1760s:
'Celebrating Holi,' Avadh, c. 1760-1764
Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections
SCW2016.12421
March 2024: Women with their faces smeared with coloured powders pose for a photograph as they celebrate Holi in Kolkata, eastern India. [Bikas Das/AP Photo]