Cleveland Museum of Art
The merchant’s daughter gives birth to a son as a result of eating out of the box. The clever child recognizes the false gems from true, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third 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
On the left, a group of merchants argue with a young boy over the veracity of their goods. The boy is a child of fate, miraculously born to a virgin after she ate the remains of a mysterious skull. The box containing the skull sits on the carpet between the virgin and her mother. The child is named Ibn al-Ghaib meaning, “the son of an invisible man.”
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