id: 137970 accession number: 1962.279.8.a share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.8.a updated: 2022-09-22 09:59:15.682000 Khujasta kills the pet mynah who advises her not to be unfaithful to Maymun, her husband, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of the Parrot): First Night, c. 1560. Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605). Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper; overall: 19.9 x 14.2 cm (7 13/16 x 5 9/16 in.); painting only: 12.9 x 10.5 cm (5 1/16 x 4 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.8.a title: Khujasta kills the pet mynah who advises her not to be unfaithful to Maymun, her husband, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of the Parrot): First Night title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1560 creation date earliest: 1555 creation date latest: 1565 current location: creditline: Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry copyright: --- culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605) technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art collection: Indian Art type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 19.9 x 14.2 cm (7 13/16 x 5 9/16 in.); Painting only: 12.9 x 10.5 cm (5 1/16 x 4 1/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Art and Stories from Mughal India opening date: 2016-07-31T04:00:00 Art and Stories from Mughal India. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 31-October 23, 2016). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Indian Miniature Rotation (Gallery 115). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 4-August 5, 2003). * Indian Miniature Rotation (Gallery 115). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 20-August 18, 2004). --- PROVENANCE Estate of Breckenridge Long, Bowie, MD, 1959; Harry Burke Antiques, Philadelphia, PA; Bernard Brown, Milwaukee, WI; date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Merchant ships brave treacherous waters; a distant city appears in the upper left. digital description: wall 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. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS 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. page number: pp. 83-84 url: Seyller, John. “Overpainting in the Cleveland T̤ūtīnāma.” Artibus Asiae 52, no. 3/4 (1992): 283-318. page number: p. 309 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3249892 --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1962.279.8.a/1962.279.8.a_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1962.279.8.a/1962.279.8.a_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1962.279.8.a/1962.279.8.a_full.tif