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Landscape with a lotus pool, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night

Unknown

1560

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Mughal Painting Renaissance Renaissance Landscape Made for Prince Salim

Dominant colour

Landscape with a lotus pool, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night is a 1560 unspecified by Unknown, a Mughal Painting work, depicting Made for Prince Salim, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1560 · Mughal Painting
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a quiet blue pool ringed with lotus pads, date palms, and small animals—a squirrel, birds, fish. Most pages in the *Tuti-nama* tell parrot stories with busy figures. This one is different: no people, no plot, just nature. The water looks like woven straw, a trick artists used to show light dancing on the surface. If you like this calm scene, look up Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605).

The story of this work

Overview

A serene, blue lotus pool is surrounded by plants and wildlife. Bright yellow squirrels climb up the thin trunks of date palms, while birds perch in the treetops. Fish swim in the stylized “basket-weave” water. This is one of only two non-narrative landscape scenes in this volume of the Tuti-nama .