The prince, once reprieved, is returned to the palace of execution a second time on the plea of the king’s handmaiden, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and De

The prince, once reprieved, is returned to the palace of execution a second time on the plea of the king’s handmaiden, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gujarati (Indian, active 1550s-1590s).

The work and its context

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

Above, the handmaiden addresses the king, who is seated on a large throne. She begs once again for the prince to be executed for a crime he did not commit. In the lower register, the bound prince kneels, barefoot and surrounded by armed guards. His execution will be stopped for the second time by one of the king’s viziers.

Object facts

• Title: The prince, once reprieved, is returned to the palace of execution a second time on the plea of the king’s handmaiden, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night
• Date: c. 1560
• Creator attribution: Gujarati (Indian, active 1550s-1590s)
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20 x 13.6 cm (7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.59.b

A detail from the museum

The vizier tells the king a story about the wicked ways of women.

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]: 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.