The merchant hears of his wife’s unfaithfulness (above); the unfaithful wife performs penance by plucking her hair (below), from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): First Night (c. 1560): Art, History an

The merchant hears of his wife’s unfaithfulness (above); the unfaithful wife performs penance by plucking her hair (below), from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): First 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 the upper register the merchant is surrounded by gossiping members of his household. Below, birds surround his unfaithful wife. The merchant’s parrot, whom the wife tried to kill, perches on the edge of a tomb to observe her act of penance. Once her penance is complete, the parrot reunites the couple, and the wife is welcomed home.

Object facts

• Title: The merchant hears of his wife’s unfaithfulness (above); the unfaithful wife performs penance by plucking her hair (below), from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): First 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: 16.3 x 10.3 cm (6 7/16 x 4 1/16 in.); Overall: 20 x 13.6 cm (7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.10.b

A detail from the museum

The birds in the garden have gathered in in sympathy with the parrot’s plight.

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.