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The two cooks, who attempt to seduce the warrior’s loyal wife, are trapped by her in a cellar, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fourth Night
c. 1560
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting only: 12.6 x 10.4 cm (4 15/16 x 4 1/8 in.); Overall: 20 x 13.6 cm (7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This story is about how wives who wish to be faithful will remain so, despite any seduction. This woman’s husband was a soldier, and when he was away on duty for months at a time, his master, the king, was intrigued at his wife’s faithfulness, proven by a magical rose garland that remained eternally fresh. The king wished to test her by sending his two handsome cooks to visit her and attempt to lure her into adultery. She tricked them into coming to her home and getting on a bed made of weak strings, positioned over a pit into which they fell. She kept them prisoner there until the king and her husband came to see what happened.
