The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 25, 2024
The deceitful wife ejects the procuress after blackening her face, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night
c. 1560
(Indian, active 1550s–c.1600)
Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 10.5 x 10 cm (4 1/8 x 3 15/16 in.)
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.67.b
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
The striped dome and yellow bricks are vestiges of an earlier style of painting.Description
The lover of the unfaithful wife sent a female messenger to arrange for their rendezvous. In a false display of horror, the wily adulteress blackened the face of the messenger as though to disgrace her and threw her out of the house, ordering her to be dumped by the side of a canal. That act, however, was a coded message to her lover to meet at the dark of night at that same location. The Indian artist Shravana added the pink brick wall to lend a sense of depth and dimensionality to the scene.- ?–1959Estate of Breckinridge Long [1881–1958], Bowie, MD1959–1962?(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, OHProvenance Footnotes1 Samuel Miller Breckinridge Long (May 16, 1881–September 26, 1958) was an American diplomat and politician, who served in the administrations of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Long is largely remembered for his obstructionist role as the Assistant Secretary of State responsible for granting refugee visas during World War II. His interests included the collection of antiques, paintings and American ship models. He maintained a stable of Thoroughbred race horses and was a director of the Laurel Park Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland, and he enjoyed fox hunting, fishing, and sailing.
- Chandra, Pramod, and Daniel J. Ehnbom. The Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and the Origins of Mughal Painting. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976. p. 104Chandra, Pramod, and Daniel J. Ehnbom. The Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and the Origins of Mughal Painting. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976. pp. 78, 104Seyller, John. “Overpainting in the Cleveland T̤ūtīnāma.” Artibus Asiae 52, no. 3/4 (1992): 283-318. p. 311 www.jstor.org
- Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 245); December 31, 2013 - June 30, 2014.
- {{cite web|title=The deceitful wife ejects the procuress after blackening her face, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night|url=false|author=Shravana|year=c. 1560|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.67.b