Artwork Page for The street cleaner, on his way to meet King Bhojaraja, sleeps under a tree where four thieves disguised as fellow travelers deprive him of a priceless pearl, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twelfth Night

Details / Information for The street cleaner, on his way to meet King Bhojaraja, sleeps under a tree where four thieves disguised as fellow travelers deprive him of a priceless pearl, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twelfth Night

The street cleaner, on his way to meet King Bhojaraja, sleeps under a tree where four thieves disguised as fellow travelers deprive him of a priceless pearl, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twelfth Night

c. 1560

Mughal India, court of Akbar

(reigned 1556–1605)
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Medium
gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Measurements
Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 10.5 x 10.4 cm (4 1/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.97.a
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.
Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

The body of the thief has been overpainted and repositioned.

Description

Many scholars consider the diminutive Tuti-nama to have been one of the first illustrated manuscripts made for Akbar, on which Indian artists worked with Persian masters to formulate a new style that their exacting emperor appreciated. The new Mughal style would be used to create the monumental Hamza-nama and hundreds of other Mughal manuscripts. There are many continuities between the Tuti-nama and the Hamza-nama, such as the image of a recumbent figure under a magnificent tree.
A book page has Persian script in the lower third and an image in the upper two-thirds depicting a man sleeping under a tree as three men to our left kneel over him and a fourth man on our right, stealing something from the man's side. All the men have light skin tones. Wearing blue, the sleeping man leans his face against his right hand. A tree composed of intertwining trunks rises behind his head. Long-necked white birds sit in its leaves.

The street cleaner, on his way to meet King Bhojaraja, sleeps under a tree where four thieves disguised as fellow travelers deprive him of a priceless pearl, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twelfth Night

c. 1560

Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)

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