The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot) (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot) (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:

Tuti the talking parrot begins to tell Khujasta the story of a merchant named Mansur and his encounter with an imposter. Various features of the room, including the pale colors and flat composition are reminiscent of the pre-Akbar painting style.

Object facts

• Title: The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)
• 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: 11.7 x 10.2 cm (4 5/8 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.124.a

A detail from the museum

The dark halo around Khujasta’s face indicates that her profile has been reshaped.

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.