The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented book page with bands of Persian script above and below a painting depicting Khujasta, a woman with light skin tone, facing a green parrot, standing on a cylindrical platform on our left. Khujasta holds her right hand out in which she pinches a piece of green between to fingers. The room behind her has been flattened into planes of varying colorful patterns, including orange, yellow, and blue zig-zags, hexagons, and squares.

The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the forty-third night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)

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: 9.2 x 10.3 cm (3 5/8 x 4 1/16 in.)
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.276.a
Location: 242B Indian Painting

Did You Know?

Khujasta holds a packet of paan for freshening the breath in her left hand.

Description

In this brightly patterned scene, Khujasta prepares to leave for a clandestine rendezvous. However, she is stopped by Tuti the parrot, who tells her moralizing stories that last until sunrise.

Multiple architectural spaces have been flattened as though they were made using paper cutouts. Khujasta stands on the pink tiled floor of a courtyard. Behind her the blue carpet on the floor of a covered porch has been tilted up vertically below the red tiled lower wall decor. Lattice windows reveal the darkness of night. The golden tile patterns above the protrusions of the pink stone roof appear to indicate the floor of the roof above.
  • ?–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.
  • 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 parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the forty-third night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1560|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.276.a