Shahr-Arai and her husband adopt her lover as a brother in the family, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fortieth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

Shahr-Arai and her husband adopt her lover as a brother in the family, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fortieth 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:

Shahr-Arai and her husband sit together on the right, offering food to Shah-Arai’s lover. She has successfully tricked her gullible husband, and he gladly welcomes the young man into their household. From this point on, the three live happily together—the husband never uncovering the truth of Shah-Arai’s deception.

Object facts

• Title: Shahr-Arai and her husband adopt her lover as a brother in the family, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fortieth 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: 9.1 x 10.2 cm (3 9/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.262.a

A detail from the museum

A lack of facial hair signals the lover’s youth.

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.