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

The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twentieth 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:

Tuti the parrot begins telling Khujasta a story about the daughter of a pious man who turned down three suitors, so she could follow religious pursuits. She stands outside her bed chamber, where a low table has stacked red water jugs, and a dish with ingredients to make paan. The golden ewer and basin are for handwashing.

Object facts

• Title: The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twentieth 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: 7.1 x 10.1 cm (2 13/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.143.a

A detail from the museum

Khujasta is wearing an ivory-peg earring.

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, 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.
• Nakhshabī, Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn, and Muhammed Ahmed Simsar, translator and editor. Tales of a Parrot = The Cleveland Museum of Art's Ṭūṭīnāma. Cleveland, OH: The Museum, 1978.

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.