Description

This first painting from Akbar’s Tuti-nama depicts a scene from the book’s frame story. Using a narrative device common in pre-Mughal India, the painting shows three different moments of time: Maymun sailing away on a merchant ship; his wife, Khujasta, on the roof of her house gesturing to, as the story tells us, a prince on the street below, with whom she falls in love; and Khujasta in the courtyard of her home having dashed the pet mynah bird to the floor in anger.

An exceptionally important manuscript, the Tuti-nama was painted by Indian artists, many of whom were learning to work in a Persian book format for the first time. Stylistic features of pre-Mughal Indian painting appear throughout the manuscript, such as the flat red floor and the white-on-black horizontal parapet.