
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-seventh Night, form a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)
- Date
- c. 1560
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Culture
- Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
- Department
- Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 137542
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Khujasta prepares herself each night to secretly meet her new lover, but before she is able to leave, her pet parrot Tuti cleverly entices her to stay with the tantalizing beginnings of a story. Tuti’s telling of the story takes all night, and by the time he reaches the end, it is too late for her rendezvous. A bowl of paan, areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves, has been set out for chewing, freshening breath, and its various pleasurable effects. Khujasta has been drinking wine—evidenced by the bottles on the low table before her.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- 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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