The daughter-in-law returns from her misadventure, feigning insanity, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Sixteenth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The daughter-in-law returns from her misadventure, feigning insanity, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Sixteenth 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:

After a failed love affair, the daughter-in-law of the king of Banaras returns home to her husband. Her disheveled hair and lack of jewelry support her claims of insanity and hide the evidence of her true whereabouts. The woman is greeted by the king, who sits with one of his attendants. In the chambers above them, a group of women look on in surprise.

Object facts

• Title: The daughter-in-law returns from her misadventure, feigning insanity, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Sixteenth 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: 11.4 x 10.1 cm (4 1/2 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.122.b

A detail from the museum

An arm visible beneath the central chamber indicates that a smaller figure has been overpainted.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• Seyller, John. “Overpainting in the Cleveland T̤ūtīnāma.” Artibus Asiae 52, no. 3/4 (1992): 283-318.

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.