Cleveland Museum of Art
The pious man’s wife offers the seven-colored bird as food to her lover, but not finding its head, he breaks the pot and bowl in anger, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifty-second 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
- 137857
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The treacherous man knows that whoever eats the bird’s head will become a king; however, the woman’s son has already eaten it. Enraged, he demands that she cut off her son’s head and cook it for him. Maddened by love, the woman agrees. The son’s nurse learns of the woman’s terrible plan and flees with him to safety. The cooked body of the seven-colored bird lies thrown on the tiled floor.
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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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