Artwork Page for The deceitful wife ejects the procuress after blackening her face, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night

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The deceitful wife ejects the procuress after blackening her face, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night

c. 1560

Shravana

(Indian, active 1550s–c.1600)
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Culture
Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
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 cm (4 1/8 x 3 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.67.b
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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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.
A vertically oriented gum tempera and ink painting features rows of Persian calligraphy framing a central scene. In a courtyard with patterned flooring, a woman in a red dress stands on our left, watching as a woman in a green dress pushes a person with dark skin tone toward a dark opening. Behind them, pink brick walls give way to domed structures under a blue sky. Gold highlights accent jewelry, architecture, and the surrounding calligraphy.

The deceitful wife ejects the procuress after blackening her face, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night

c. 1560

Shravana

(Indian, active 1550s–c.1600)
Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)

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