Page from Tales of a Parrot (Tuti-nama): text page

Basawan employed a fine black ink to compose the calligraphic text, which is richly embellished with curvilinear flourishes, swirls and decorative dots. Accents of red and blue pigment frame the margins, adding visual contrast. The paper has acquired a warm, yellowed patina, indicating extensive handling, while the brushwork suggests a skilled hand using a pointed pen or brush.

Created in the mid‑sixteenth century for a Mughal patron, the page later entered the European art market before being acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Its provenance traces a path from South Asian manuscript production to a Western institutional collection, where it is preserved as a representative example of Basawan’s oeuvre.

During the reign of Emperor Akbar, Mughal workshops produced lavishly illustrated manuscripts that combined Persian literary traditions with Indian artistic sensibilities. Basawan, a leading painter of the imperial atelier, contributed to this cultural synthesis, and the *Tuti‑nama* exemplifies the period’s emphasis on moral instruction through richly decorated textual pages.