The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of January 28, 2023

The Raja’s daughter, born with three breasts, accompanies her blind husband and his hunchback guide on a journey, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-second Night

c. 1560

Part of a set. See all set records

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: 9.2 x 10.4 cm (3 5/8 x 4 1/8 in.)

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.271.a

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The woman was forced to leave home after soothsayers predicted that she would someday harm her father.

Description

The blind man clutches tightly to the hunchback’s staff with one hand and his wife’s arm with the other. At the front of the group, the hunchback points ahead to their ultimate destination—a city far from where the raja’s daughter was born. This image represents a story within the story that is being told by a parrot to the merchant’s son ‘Ubaid in order to cure his infatuation with his wife.

Provenance
Estate of Breckenridge Long, Bowie, MD, 1959; Harry Burke Antiques, Philadelphia, PA; Bernard Brown, Milwaukee, WI;
Citations
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, 142
Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.271.a