The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fifty-second night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifty-second Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fifty-second night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifty-second 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:

On the final night of the Tuti-nama, Khujasta asks Tuti the parrot if she can leave to visit her lover. As the story ends, Khujasta’s husband, Maymun, returns home from his journey. Her affair is revealed, and she is ultimately killed. Maymun shaves his head, dons the robes of an ascetic, and enters a hermitage.

Object facts

• Title: The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fifty-second night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifty-second 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: 8.3 x 10.2 cm (3 1/4 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.332.b

A detail from the museum

Tuti is telling Khujasta a story about how the son of a pious man became a king.

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.