The young man, who has magically taken on the appearance of Mansur the merchant, arrives at his home, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Seventeenth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The young man, who has magically taken on the appearance of Mansur the merchant, arrives at his home, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Seventeenth 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:

After receiving a magical epithet from a monk, the lascivious young man transformed his appearance into that of Mansur, the merchant, in order to go to bed with Manur’s wife. The imposter, dressed in yellow at the right, is welcomed home by members of Mansur’s household. They are distressed that he has returned unexpectedly without his horse, assistants, or belongings.

Object facts

• Title: The young man, who has magically taken on the appearance of Mansur the merchant, arrives at his home, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Seventeenth 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: 10.9 x 10.1 cm (4 5/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.128.a

A detail from the museum

The magical, wish-fulfilling epithet derives from the names of God.

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.

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.