09/09/2026
She Who Leads, 1924
The painting’s Russian title is Ведущая (Vedushchaya), literally “She Who Leads.” belongs to Roerich’s twelve-painting His Country (Его Страна) series. Roerich’s own list of works records it as the fifth painting in the series.
The series includes Remember, Book of Wisdom, Pearl of Searching, He Who Hastens, She Who Leads, Higher Than the Mountains, Lower Than the Depths, Fire Blossom, Treasure of the World, Burning of Darkness, Star of the Mother of the World, and White and Heavenly.
In Sikkim, India, in 1924.
The Roerich family arrived in India in December 1923 and soon traveled to Sikkim in the eastern Himalayas, where they remained during this formative period before the Central Asian Expedition. The Nicholas Roerich Museum’s early catalogues actually mark the His Country works “1924 S.,” meaning Sikkim.
In his writings collected in Realm of Light, Roerich discusses the role of women and then specifically identifies this painting. He explains that in She Who Leads he wanted to portray:
“the resplendent striving of the woman who leads the seeker of achievements to the glorious peaks.”
In fact, another painting in the His Country series is Star of the Mother of the World.
Roerich later wrote that humanity particularly needed the unity of women working creatively for the good. In the same discussion he directly connects this idea to She Who Leads.
During the 1920s and afterward, the idea of the feminine as a guiding spiritual force becomes increasingly visible in his work. She Who Leads belongs to the same general world of ideas as his images of the Mother of the World.
This is another fascinating part of the painting.
The title doesn’t simply mean Roerich’s adopted country of India.
The His Country series presents the Himalayas as a sacred or legendary realm. One source describing the series connects “His Country” with Roerich’s ideas concerning the Mahatmas or Great Souls and the tradition of hidden Himalayan spiritual centers.
