The forty wives and their secret paramours being punished by stoning to death, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night
Unknown Artist
c. 1560
Medium
gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Dimensions
20.3 × 14 cm · painting only: 8.7 × 10 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
Accession Number
1962.279.164.a
About this artwork
The Raja’s wives have been hiding forty young men dressed as women in their chambers. When their amorous affairs were revealed, all eighty were killed. Their deaths fulfilled an old prophecy written on a mysterious skull. The Raja’s men stand on the edges of the composition, hurling stones into the pile of intertwined bodies.