The merchant has the hateful skull ground and put into a box, 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: 10.5 × 10.2 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
Accession Number
1962.279.161.a
About this artwork
A small, yellow box rests on the ground in the center foreground of the image. Inside are the remains of a skull inscribed with a warning that it had caused the death of eighty men and would cause the death of eighty more. The merchant, on the left, had the skull destroyed, unaware that his actions could not circumvent fate.