The deceitful wife persuades her husband to sleep in the same place where she had previously slept with her lover, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Detail

The deceitful wife persuades her husband to sleep in the same place where she had previously slept with her lover, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth 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:

In order to preempt the accusations of her father-in-law, the clever wife brought her husband to the same location and slept with him there. When her father-in-law then confronted his son, telling him that he caught his wife in bed with a man by the side of the canal and had her anklet to prove it, the husband simply laughed and said that the man was he, himself. In this manner the clever woman did not get caught in her adultery. The vizier's story convinced the king to doubt the word of his handmaiden and stay the execution of his son. The handmaiden, hearing this, appealed to the king to defend her honor, and he again sent the prince to be executed, at which time the next vizier tells the story of another mendacious woman.

Object facts

• Title: The deceitful wife persuades her husband to sleep in the same place where she had previously slept with her lover, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth 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: 9.5 x 10.1 cm (3 3/4 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.68.b

A detail from the museum

The striped dome and blue and gold brick pattern are vestiges of an earlier tradition.

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