The lion returns to his territory and sees the monkey conversing with the lynx, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-ninth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The lion returns to his territory and sees the monkey conversing with the lynx, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-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:

The lion who rules the meadow returns from a journey to find that his home has been invaded by a family of lynx, who claim that they are its rightful owners. Although this painting depicts all of the animals together, in the text, the lion does not see the lynx and is easily tricked into believing they are fearsome creatures.

Object facts

• Title: The lion returns to his territory and sees the monkey conversing with the lynx, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-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: Painting only: 13.9 x 10.2 cm (5 1/2 x 4 in.); Overall: 20 x 14.1 cm (7 7/8 x 5 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.194.b

A detail from the museum

The monkey bares his teeth and gesticulates when he talks.

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.