The four destitute friends go to a wise man who gives each one of them a magic shell to be placed on top of the turban, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Forty-seventh Night
1560
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1560
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Four men in tattered clothes kneel before a wise man under a tree. The wise man hands each a small red shell. A servant waits behind him. This painting comes from a book of stories told by a parrot to keep a queen from leaving her palace at night. The shells are magic—where they fall, treasure waits. The artist shows every wrinkle in the men’s robes and every leaf on the tree, even though the scene is tiny. To see more paintings like this, look up Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605).
