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Tuti-Nama (Tales of a Parrot)

c. 1560
(reigned 1556–1605)
gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.)
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279
Location: not on view
Public Domain
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Did You Know?

Another Akbari Tuti-Nama, painted in the 1580s, is held in Dublin’s Chester Beatty Library.

Description

The Tuti-Nama, written in Persian in the early fourteenth century, contains a series of fifty-two moralizing tales told by a clever, talking parrot. Each story is intended to instruct Khujasta and distract her from an adulterous affair. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s copy of the manuscript was painted for Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) and represents the origins of Mughal painting.
Tuti-Nama (Tales of a Parrot)

Tuti-Nama (Tales of a Parrot)

c. 1560

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

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