Green Parrot
Unknown Artist
c. 1820
Medium
Gum tempera on paper
Dimensions
38.5 × 28.6 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Bequest of Edgar A. Hahn
Accession Number
1972.285
About this artwork
Made by an Indian artist for a British civil servant working in Calcutta (now Kolkata), this bird is portrayed with precision and brilliant color. It appears to be of the same type as Tuti, the protagonist of the early Mughal Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot) manuscript. This example, however, has a black beak, indicating she is female, while the male Tuti has a red beak. Though loosely translated as “parrot,” Tuti is technically a Lord Derby’s parakeet. Because of its ability to talk, the parrot of...