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The merchant’s clerk replaces the sugar purchased by the philandering wife with gravel, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Eighth Night
c. 1560
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting only: 10.5 x 10.2 cm (4 1/8 x 4 in.); Overall: 20 x 14.4 cm (7 7/8 x 5 11/16 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
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
While buying sugar at the market, a woman has an impromptu affair with a merchant. The two lovers embrace in the chamber on the left. Outside the chamber the merchant’s clerk, wearing blue, surreptitiously replaces the adulteress’s sugar with gravel. Unaware of the switch, she will bring the bag of gravel back to her husband, who reacts with surprise and consternation
