The son of the king of Babylon sees the Brahman transformed into a woman bathing and falls in love with her, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-fifth Night

Cleveland Museum of Art

The son of the king of Babylon sees the Brahman transformed into a woman bathing and falls in love with her, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-fifth Night

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
137646

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

One day the king’s son caught sight of a woman washing her hair and fell in love with her. She was actually a Brahmin, a Hindu priest, who had a magic pearl of transformation that allowed him to live in the women’s quarters with his lover, the princess. The princess gestures in alarm, as she realizes her brother has fallen for her lover. Another popular subject that we see in the Tuti-Nama and in later painting is women bathing in a pool. Women bathing also appear in Krishna sporting with the gopis , from the early Bhagavata Purana , CMA 1971.171 . Note how the Mughal handling of water with gentle swirls differs from the concentric circles in Krishna sporting with the gopis . The prince becomes so lovesick that he nearly dies.

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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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