Artwork Page for The forty wives and their secret paramours being punished by stoning to death, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night

Details / Information for The forty wives and their secret paramours being punished by stoning to death, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night

The forty wives and their secret paramours being punished by stoning to death, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third 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: 8.7 x 10 cm (3 7/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.164.a
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Mustaches are visible on several women in the pile, indicating that they are men in disguise.

Description

The Raja’s wives have been hiding forty young men dressed as women in their chambers. When their amorous affairs were revealed, all eighty were killed. Their deaths fulfilled an old prophecy written on a mysterious skull. The Raja’s men stand on the edges of the composition, hurling stones into the pile of intertwined bodies.
A vertically oriented gum tempera and ink painting features four rows of black script at the top. Below, a dense cluster of people with light to dark skin tones overlaps against a dark green ground. At the periphery, men in red, blue, and yellow tunics raise gray stones to throw at the central group. The composition is tightly packed with overlapping figures, their colorful garments and expressive faces huddling beneath the text.

The forty wives and their secret paramours being punished by stoning to death, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night

c. 1560

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

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