The merchant has the hateful skull ground and put into a box, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Twenty-third Night c. 1560 Part of a set. See all set records India, Mughal, Reign of Akbar, 16th century Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 10.5 x 10.2 cm (4 1/8 x 4 in.) Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1962.279.161.a DID YOU KNOW? This story takes place in Tabriz, capital of Iran’s Safavid Empire from 1501 to 1555. DESCRIPTION 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. PROVENANCE Estate of Breckenridge Long, Bowie, MD, 1959; Harry Burke Antiques, Philadelphia, PA; Bernard Brown, Milwaukee, WI; CITATIONS Nakhshabī, Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn, and Muhammed Ahmed Simsar. Tales of a Parrot = The Cleveland Museum of Art's Ṭūṭīnāma. Cleveland: The Museum, 1978. Trans. pp. 152-156