The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-ninth 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-ninth 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 consults with the talking parrot Tuti before leaving to meet with her lover. The shrewd bird begins to tell her the story of a lynx who successfully saved himself from a lion. By the time the story ends, it is too late for Khujasta to leave for her rendezvous.

Object facts

• Title: The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-ninth 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: Painting only: 9.7 x 10 cm (3 13/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Overall: 20 x 14.2 cm (7 7/8 x 5 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.192.a

A detail from the museum

Two pieces of blue and white Chinese porcelain are visible in niches in Khujasta’s room.

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.