The eldest brother explains the reason for his youthful appearance, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-ninth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The eldest brother explains the reason for his youthful appearance, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-ninth 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:

A king’s official sits conversing with the oldest of three brothers. Despite his advanced age, the man appears younger than all of his siblings. When asked, he explains that he has not aged because his life is free of anxiety: his farm yields abundant crops, and his wife is obedient and happy.

Object facts

• Title: The eldest brother explains the reason for his youthful appearance, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-ninth 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: 9.9 x 10 cm (3 7/8 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.315.a

A detail from the museum

Strings of pearls are braided into the woman’s hair.

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.