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

The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-fifth 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:

Khujasta stands in front of a porch with a blue arabesque carpet and footed bed. The empty bed speaks to her loneliness and longing for a lover. She is dressed as an Indian woman, with backless blouse, orange wrapped skirt, and a long sash. The pompom fringe of her translucent, muslin stole stands out in a vertical row.

Object facts

• Title: The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-fifth 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: 6.2 x 10.1 cm (2 7/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.171.b

A detail from the museum

Pink sandstone was a favored building material around the region of Delhi and Agra in northern India.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.