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

The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Sixth 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 Dasavanta (Indian).

The work and its context

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

Tuti the parrot begins to tell Khujasta the story of seven men who became enamored with the statue of a woman that came to life. A Persian inscription in the lower margin attributes this page to the painter Dasavanta. The golden carpet and soft tufts of grass are similar to those found on folio 32v, also attributed to Dasavanta.

Object facts

• Title: The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Sixth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)
• Date: c. 1560
• Creator attribution: Dasavanta (Indian)
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 8.9 x 10.6 cm (3 1/2 x 4 3/16 in.); Overall: 20 x 14.3 cm (7 7/8 x 5 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.37.b

A detail from the museum

Dasavanta was a mural painter discovered by emperor Akbar, who had him trained in the royal atelier.

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.
• Chandra, Pramod, and Daniel J. Ehnbom. The Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and the Origins of Mughal Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976.
• 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.