The wolf and the jackal, serving as viziers, instigate the lion who pursues the Brahman up a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-first Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The wolf and the jackal, serving as viziers, instigate the lion who pursues the Brahman up a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-first 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 Brahman perches precariously at the top of a tree as the hungry lion waits below surrounded by wolves and jackals. Previously, the lion’s other viziers, the deer and the gazelle, had counseled the lion to treat the Brahman with kindness. They appear again to save the Brahman life.

Object facts

• Title: The wolf and the jackal, serving as viziers, instigate the lion who pursues the Brahman up a tree, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-first 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: 10.8 x 10.4 cm (4 1/4 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.152.a

A detail from the museum

The artist has depicted the gazelle and deer as a blackbuck and cow.

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.