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

The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the forty-fourth night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot) (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Standing against a brightly colored landscape, Khujasta consults with Tuti, the clever, talking parrot. He tells her the story of a raja whose children planned to kill him and the musician whose words brought them to their senses. This image is composed of the pale tones that were popular in a pre-Mughal Indo-Persian painting style.

Object facts

• Title: The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the forty-fourth night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)
• 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: 9.6 x 10.1 cm (3 3/4 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.282.b

A detail from the museum

The flag at the end of the eave is held in the snout of a Ganges crocodile head.

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.