Repenting his conduct, ‘Ubaid falls at the feet of his parents, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-second Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

Repenting his conduct, ‘Ubaid falls at the feet of his parents, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-second 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:

‘Ubaid, who was so infatuated with his new wife that he neglected his duties, is embraced by his father, the merchant of Tirmiz, who happily welcomes his repentance. ‘Ubaid has learned a lesson about the importance of familial obedience from a wise, talking parrot and a myna bird.

Object facts

• Title: Repenting his conduct, ‘Ubaid falls at the feet of his parents, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-second 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: 13.1 x 9.8 cm (5 3/16 x 3 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.275.a

A detail from the museum

A golden ewer and a piece of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain are visible in the scene.

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.
• Nakhshabī, Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn, and Muhammed Ahmed Simsar. Tales of a Parrot = The Cleveland Museum of Art's Ṭūṭīnāma. Cleveland: The Museum, 1978.

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.