The sentinel in the employ of the Shah of Tabaristan prepares to sacrifice his son to the ghost of the Shah’s soul, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Second Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Detai

The sentinel in the employ of the Shah of Tabaristan prepares to sacrifice his son to the ghost of the Shah’s soul, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Second 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 loyal sentinel, in orange, holds a knife to his son’s throat, ready to sacrifice him to save the life of his dying king, the shah. The shah himself watches from behind the tree on the right. At the left, the female personification of the shah’s soul intervenes, saving both the shah and the sentinel’s son.

Object facts

• Title: The sentinel in the employ of the Shah of Tabaristan prepares to sacrifice his son to the ghost of the Shah’s soul, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Second Night
• 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: 10.2 x 10.6 cm (4 x 4 3/16 in.); Overall: 20.1 x 14.3 cm (7 15/16 x 5 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.16.a

A detail from the museum

The near sacrifice of the sentinel’s son parallels the Qur'an’s story of Abraham and Ishmael.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.