A woman with two children, having abandoned her home, goes into the forest where she encounters a leopard, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirtieth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

A woman with two children, having abandoned her home, goes into the forest where she encounters a leopard, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirtieth Night (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A woman described as ill-tempered and quarrelsome was beaten by her husband, so she fled with her children into the wilderness. A fearsome leopard approached them, hoping to carry the children away for a meal. Thinking quickly, the woman offered the leopard one of her children and half of her own body, stating that a lion has staked claim to the other half. Fearing rivalry with the lion, the leopard quickly fled. The gold sky and arid landscape in shades of pink and blue derive from painting styles of northwestern Iran, but the woman’s dress is the tied blouse and wrapped skirt of India.

Object facts

• Title: A woman with two children, having abandoned her home, goes into the forest where she encounters a leopard, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirtieth Night
• Date: c. 1560
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 15.6 x 10.2 cm (6 1/8 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.200.b

A detail from the museum

The woman is described as bad-tempered, quarrelsome, sharp-tongued, gossipy, and peevish.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.