The cat attacks the mice which disturb the lion, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifteenth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The cat attacks the mice which disturb the lion, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifteenth 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:

One day came when the cat brought one of his sons to substitute for him as guardian against the mice, so that he could have some time away to visit his other children. That night the young cat killed all of the mice, as shown in this painting, after which the lion had no need for a cat anymore and relieved him of his position as Magistrate of the Court. The text reads: "The cat said to his son, ‘The spark of this calamity was set by you, and the robe of this disaster was tailored by you. If you had not annihilated the mice and had not entirely relieved the lion’s heart of his grief, he would not have dismissed me.’ The young cat was filled with remorse for having killed the mice." By the time the parrot finished telling the story, daybreak came and it was too late for Khujasta to rendezvous with her lover under the cover of darkness.

Object facts

• Title: The cat attacks the mice which disturb the lion, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifteenth Night
• Date: c. 1560
• Culture: India, Mughal court, 16th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20 x 14 cm (7 7/8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 8.9 x 10.1 cm (3 1/2 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.115.b

A detail from the museum

The same anonymous artist completed all three pages in the story of the lion and the mice.

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.