The Parrot Addresses Khujasta at the Beginning of the Twenty-sixth Night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot)
1560
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1560
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a woman in jewels standing under a domed porch, talking to a parrot in a cage that seems to float in the air. A flowering tree twists around a cypress behind them. This painting comes from a book of parrot tales told to delay a wife’s secret meeting. The bird’s cage isn’t tied down—it feels like a dream. The story was made for Emperor Akbar’s court, where artists mixed Persian and Indian styles. To see more paintings like this, look up Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605).
