The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 24, 2025

Vertically oriented book page with Persian script in the upper third and a painting in the lower two thirds depicting two men and two women with light skin tones entering the gates of a city over which three people with paper white complexions look. The walls of the city alternate between brick patterns and rectangles framing a square patterns, with gold and blue bands on top. One man stands on the bridge over a moat.

The two couples reach a foreign city where they make their home, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-third Night

c. 1560

Mughal India, court of Akbar

(reigned 1556–1605)
gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 11.5 x 10.1 cm (4 1/2 x 4 in.)
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.222.b
Location: 242B Indian Painting

Did You Know?

The residents of the foreign city have much whiter skin than that of the protagonists.

Description

Two pairs of lovers cross the bridge that leads to the gates of a new city. They have fled here together to live out the rest of their lives peacefully away from the machinations that would have otherwise kept them apart. Above the intricately patterned city walls, three men witness the group’s arrival.
  • ?–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]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976. pp. 79, 135
    Seyller, John. “Overpainting in the Cleveland T̤ūtīnāma.” Artibus Asiae 52, no. 3/4 (1992): 283–318. p. 318 www.jstor.org
    "Permanent Collection Installations." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 2 (2025): 14–15. Reproduced: p. 15 archive.org
  • Indian Painting of the 1500s: Continuities and Transformations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 15, 2025-January 11, 2026).
  • {{cite web|title=The two couples reach a foreign city where they make their home, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Thirty-third Night|url=false|author=|year=c. 1560|access-date=24 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.222.b