Cleveland Museum of Art

The lion disturbed by mice who eat the food trapped in his aging teeth, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifteenth Night

Date: c. 1560
Medium: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Culture: India, Mughal court, 16th century
Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 137390

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

In a scene that was overpainted to suit the taste of the emperor Akbar for soft modeling and a naturalistic sky, a tiger lies in a pink clearing, while mice run around him to pick at his teeth. The artist has depicted a tiger instead of a lion, the two often being interchangeable in Indian art. In the story, the lion had grown old and suffered from cavities, into which his food would get stuck. Mice would come and feed on those morsels between his teeth and disturb his sleep. This story takes place in China

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
Provenance: ?–1959: Estate of Breckinridge Long [1881–1958], Bowie, MD | 1959–1962?: (Harry Burke Antiques, Philadelphia, PA) | 1959?–1962: (Bernard Brown Agency, Milwaukee, WI, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Purchased with funds from Mrs. A. Dean [Helen Wade Greene] Perry) | 1962–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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