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拍品专文
The Tutinama (Tales of the Parrot) is a collection of fifty-two moralizing fables compiled in Persian by Ziya al-Din Nakshahbi around 1329-30 AD. These were based on an earlier Persian translation of a Sanskrit text known as the Sukasaptati (seventy tales of a parrot). The Tutinama is an amusing series of tales woven around a merchant, Maimum who leaves his wife, Khojasta, in the care of a parrot and a myna. The wife kills the myna for advising her not to take a lover while her huband is away; the parrot, to save its skin and preserve her fidelity, proceeds to tell her a series of stories over the next fifty-two nights. In the present scene from one of the parrot's stories, Shahr-Arai's husband plans to hide under the bed to catch his wife and her lover in the middle of an affair. However, he does not conceal himself properly, allowing Shahr-Arai to spot him, in the case of our painting by his foot peeking out from under the bed, and quickly devise a plan to trick her husband and save her lover.
The Mughal emperor Akbar I (r.1556-1605) must have enjoyed these charming stories, for two extensively illustrated imperial copies of the Tutinama survive from the early years of his reign. The first Akbari copy of this text survives virtually complete in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which contains an illustration of this same scene (inv. 1962.279.259.b).While the second, from which this folio comes, has been dispersed and is in various collections. The bulk of the manuscript, some 143 folios and 102 miniatures, are in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (L. Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, London 1995, Vol.I, pp.21-74). Hence it is commonly referred to as the ‘Chester Beatty Tutinama’.
The manuscript was brought to France from India by General Jean-François Allard (1785-1839) who had been in the service of Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was purchased by Felix Feuillet (also known as Baron F.S. Feuillet de Conches), a collector of manuscripts, and was dispersed towards the end of the 19th century when the Baron’s collection was dissolved. Other folios are now in The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (68.8.47), the Keir Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.40-1966), the National Museum, New Delhi, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.81.8.6) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv.no.3/1999) to name a few.
The Mughal emperor Akbar I (r.1556-1605) must have enjoyed these charming stories, for two extensively illustrated imperial copies of the Tutinama survive from the early years of his reign. The first Akbari copy of this text survives virtually complete in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which contains an illustration of this same scene (inv. 1962.279.259.b).While the second, from which this folio comes, has been dispersed and is in various collections. The bulk of the manuscript, some 143 folios and 102 miniatures, are in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (L. Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, London 1995, Vol.I, pp.21-74). Hence it is commonly referred to as the ‘Chester Beatty Tutinama’.
The manuscript was brought to France from India by General Jean-François Allard (1785-1839) who had been in the service of Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was purchased by Felix Feuillet (also known as Baron F.S. Feuillet de Conches), a collector of manuscripts, and was dispersed towards the end of the 19th century when the Baron’s collection was dissolved. Other folios are now in The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (68.8.47), the Keir Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.40-1966), the National Museum, New Delhi, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.81.8.6) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv.no.3/1999) to name a few.