Cleveland Museum of Art
The dervish brings in as dowry an elephant laden with gold, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Seventh 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
- 137894
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The eccentric dervish, wearing a fur cap, a leopard-skin skirt, and chains around his neck, chest, and legs, comes to the king with the very thing the king thought he could never provide: an elephant laden with gold in exchange for the princess’s hand in marriage. The dervish had gone to the magnanimous King of Kings—the overlord of this local king—with his plight: in order to marry the princess, he had to provide an elephant laden with gold as a dowry. The King of Kings, who could not resist a good love story, provided it for him. The text of the story is written in Persian in a naskh script, which is read from right to left. This painting is attributed to the same unnamed artist who painted folio 27r ( CMA 1962.279.27.a ).
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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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