The suitors take the devotee’s daughter out of her tomb after breaking it open, when the physician discovers she is still alive, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twentieth Night

The work illustrates a moment from the twentieth night of the Tuti‑nama, a narrative collection known as the Tales of a Parrot. In the scene three figures in red and blue garments are shown extracting a woman clad in white from an opened tomb, while a physician nearby realizes she remains alive. The composition includes a distant stone structure, a solitary tree with birds, and a clear blue sky, suggesting an arid, historic landscape.

Rendered in a narrative painting style, the artist employs a limited palette of vivid reds, blues, and whites to differentiate characters, while the background is softened with muted earth tones. Linear perspective suggests depth, and the inclusion of natural elements, tree, birds, clouds, balances the stark stone architecture, creating a tableau that merges realism with illustrative storytelling.

The Tuti‑nama, a Persian literary work, compiles moral and romantic stories centered on a talking parrot. This particular illustration forms part of a series that visualizes each night’s episode, serving both as a decorative manuscript element and as a didactic aid for readers to follow the plot.

Such narrative paintings were common in manuscript illumination and early book illustration, influencing later visual storytelling traditions in Persian and South Asian art. The depiction of dramatic rescue scenes contributed to the visual vocabulary used in later illustrated texts that blend literary and pictorial expression.