The old procuress conveys the young man’s message of love to Mansur’s wife, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot: Seventeenth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The old procuress conveys the young man’s message of love to Mansur’s wife, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot: Seventeenth Night (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sravana (Indian).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

When a lascivious young man learns of the beauty and virtue of the merchant Mansur’s wife, he becomes obsessed with her. While Mansur is away on a long journey, the man decides to profess his love for the woman through a messenger. Here Mansur’s wife, seated on an arabesque-patterned carpet, rebuffs the young man’s advances and sends the procuress away.

Object facts

• Title: The old procuress conveys the young man’s message of love to Mansur’s wife, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot: Seventeenth Night
• Date: c. 1560
• Creator attribution: Sravana (Indian)
• 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: 1962.279.127.a

A detail from the museum

The golden mihrab next to vessels for ritual cleansing points toward Mecca, emphasizing the wife’s piety.

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.

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.