The goldsmith and the carpenter inform the king of a dream in which the golden images plan to desert the city for lack of worshippers, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Third Night (c. 1560): Art,

The goldsmith and the carpenter inform the king of a dream in which the golden images plan to desert the city for lack of worshippers, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Third 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 this story, a goldsmith and a carpenter plan to steal a city’s idols by convincing the king that they have left on their own. They appear before the king, who addresses them from beneath a parasol in the lower register. The two golden idols sit in a shrine in the upper register.

Object facts

• Title: The goldsmith and the carpenter inform the king of a dream in which the golden images plan to desert the city for lack of worshippers, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Third 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: 16.5 x 10.4 cm (6 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.20.a

A detail from the museum

The dark-skinned figure on the left was originally painted in a peach toned complexion that is still visible on his torso.

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: The 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.