This scene of a bunch of topless wives fighting at a well is from an artwork out of Thailand, currently held in the non-displaying collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

It’s said to illustrate a scene from the Vessantara Jātaka (aka “The Great Birth Sermon”) about a generous and compassionate prince. The scene is establishing character motivation for Jujaka, one of the people who scheme to take advantage of Vessantara’s generosity:

Jujaka, a greedy old brahmin who lived as a beggar, had a very young wife, Amittada, who was also very beautiful and hard-working. During the drought Amittada used to regularly bring water from the well for her old husband. The husbands of the other women in the village held her up as an example of a good industrious wife. One day, in a fit of jealousy, all the village women gathered by the well and beat up the Brahmin’s young wife, tearing her clothes.

From that day onward the girl stubbornly refused to go to the well any longer.

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