1560
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The merchant’s daughter gives birth to a son as a result of eating out of the box. The clever child recognizes the false gems from true, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night is a 1560 unspecified by Unknown, a Mughal Painting work, depicting Made for Prince Salim, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a busy market scene: merchants in turbans wave fake jewels at a small boy who points to the real ones. Behind them, a woman and her mother sit on a patterned carpet beside a strange wooden box. The boy is no ordinary child. His mother ate from that box and gave birth without ever marrying. The story comes from a book of parrot tales read aloud in the court of Emperor Akbar. If you like this mix of magic and daily life, look up Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605).
On the left, a group of merchants argue with a young boy over the veracity of their goods. The boy is a child of fate, miraculously born to a virgin after she ate the remains of a mysterious skull. The box containing the skull sits on the carpet between the virgin and her mother.
The child is named Ibn al-Ghaib meaning, “the son of an invisible man.”
Read the full account in the museum source.
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