The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)

c. 1560

India, Mughal court, 16th century

gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 7.6 x 10 cm (3 x 3 15/16 in.)
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.112.a
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The stacked red jugs on the left are water pots.

Description

Panels of bold color are closely reminiscent of local Indian painting traditions, as seen in the page to the left. The artist here is experimenting with depicting three-dimensionality in the angled rendering of the bed, the placement of Khujasta’s feet on the plane of the floor, and the parrot who stands in the space of his cage. In comparison to the figures in The Sage Narada tells King Kamsa of Vishnu’s Impending Incarnation to the left, Khujasta’s gesture is less pertly angular, and her face has smaller features and gentler contours. Falsely encouraging her to go meet her lover, the parrot tells her that if she doesn’t go, and her husband returns, she would regret not having gone to see him just as the cat repented having killed the mice. She must then hear the story of why a cat would regret killing mice.
  • ?–1959
    Estate of Breckinridge Long [1881–1958], Bowie, MD
    1959–1962?
    (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, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 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, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976. p. 115
    Nakhshabī, Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn, and Muhammed Ahmed Simsar, translator and editor. Tales of a Parrot = The Cleveland Museum of Art's Ṭūṭīnāma. Cleveland, OH: The Museum, 1978. pp. 107-111
    Seyller, John. “Overpainting in the Cleveland T̤ūtīnāma.” Artibus Asiae 52, no. 3/4 (1992): 283-318. p. 314 www.jstor.org
  • Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 245). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 2, 2014-January 5, 2015).
  • {{cite web|title=The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1560|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.112.a