Page from Tales of a Parrot (Tuti-nama): text page
Unknown Artist
c. 1560
Medium
gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Dimensions
20.3 × 14 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
Accession Number
1962.279.96.b
About this artwork
The text of this manuscript was adapted, edited, and revised by Ziya al-Din Nakhshabi in 1329–30 from an earlier compilation called Gems of Nocturnal Conversations, written as a gift for the Sultan of Delhi. Turkic by ethnicity, but Persian-speaking, Nakhshabi settled in India. He was a religious cleric from Central Asia belonging to the mystical Sufi order of Islam. He rewrote and revised the earlier work, renamed it the Tuti-nama, and made the language more elegant and proper than the previous...