The magician disguised as a Brahman returns to claim his “daughter-in-law,” from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-fifth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The magician disguised as a Brahman returns to claim his “daughter-in-law,” from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-fifth 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 story continues with a ruse to allow the Brahman and the princess to escape the king’s son and live happily ever after. The magician transformed the lovers into men, so they were able to leave the palace unrecognized. In order to garner a fortune on which they could support themselves, the magician approached the king in the guise of a Brahman to reclaim the woman he had entrusted to the harem and who he said was his daughter-in-law. When the king stated that she has disappeared, the magician in the form of a Brahman acted as though he would stab himself to death. The king assuaged him by paying a large sum of money as compensation for losing the woman. A servant brings a blue-and-white porcelain dish full of gold coins. A different artist painted this page without referencing the appearance of either the king or the magician in the guise of a Brahman from the previous page.

Object facts

• Title: The magician disguised as a Brahman returns to claim his “daughter-in-law,” from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-fifth 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: 11.3 x 10.1 cm (4 7/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.236.a

A detail from the museum

The previous painting, which shows the palace's reaction to the daughter-in-law’s disappearance, is currently in a private collection.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

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.