Habbaza meets Bashir under a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-fourth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

Habbaza meets Bashir under a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-fourth 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:

Habbaza clandestinely meets with her lover Bashir outside of her village. The two lovers have been separated by Habbaza’s husband, who learned of their affair. Bahir’s friend, who arranged the secret meeting, waits at the right. The lower register shows a scene of the activity in Habbaza’s village.

Object facts

• Title: Habbaza meets Bashir under a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-fourth 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: 13.8 x 10 cm (5 7/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.168.b

A detail from the museum

The dark sky indicates that this scene takes place at night.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chandra, Pramod, and Daniel J. Ehnbom. The Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and the Origins of Mughal Painting. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976.

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.