The prince, having deprived the snake of its natural food, a frog, feeds it with a piece of his own flesh, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighteenth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The prince, having deprived the snake of its natural food, a frog, feeds it with a piece of his own flesh, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighteenth Night (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The prince and Good Fortune in the form of a woman came across a pool, here rendered with geometric tile work, tilted up so that the viewer can see it as though from above. A cobra had caught a frog, who cried out for help. The prince freed the frog, who jumped into the water and rejoined his mate. The prince then cut a piece of his own flesh for the snake to eat instead. The wives of the snake and frog then admonished their husbands to return the favor.

Object facts

• Title: The prince, having deprived the snake of its natural food, a frog, feeds it with a piece of his own flesh, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighteenth Night
• 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: 9 x 10.1 cm (3 9/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.132.b

A detail from the museum

The tree with red-tipped leaves is a mango tree.

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.
• 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.
• 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.