Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
The dervish brings the King of Kings before the king of Bahilistan, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Seventh Night
c. 1560
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 13.3 x 9.9 cm (5 1/4 x 3 7/8 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
The vizier advised the king that he should tell the dervish that he must bring the head of the King of Kings before he will give his daughter in marriage to him. The dervish then went to the King of Kings with his plight, who said that he would go himself to the local king, and bring him his head still attached to his body. At the bottom of the composition is a formal garden with leafy groundcover and canals of water. The composition has been altered, as there was an oval of gold beneath the central pool of water and orange tiles under the architectural pavilions on the roof. The strip of blue with delicate floral arabesque was added in accordance with a taste for more updated Persian styles.
