The merchant’s clerk replaces the sugar purchased by the philandering wife with gravel, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The merchant’s clerk replaces the sugar purchased by the philandering wife with gravel, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth 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:

While buying sugar at the market, a woman has an impromptu affair with a merchant. The two lovers embrace in the chamber on the left. Outside the chamber the merchant’s clerk, wearing blue, surreptitiously replaces the adulteress’s sugar with gravel. Unaware of the switch, she will bring the bag of gravel back to her husband, who reacts with surprise and consternation

Object facts

• Title: The merchant’s clerk replaces the sugar purchased by the philandering wife with gravel, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth 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: 10.5 x 10.2 cm (4 1/8 x 4 in.); Overall: 20 x 14.4 cm (7 7/8 x 5 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.70.a

A detail from the museum

A bowl beneath the lovers’ bed contains green pan leaves, which freshen breath when chewed.

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.
• 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.