2-736-605 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Page from Tales of a Parrot (Tuti-nama): Fifteenth night: The lion disturbed by mice who eat the food trapped in his aging teeth, 1558-1560. In a scene that was overpainted to suit the taste of the emperor Akbar for soft modeling and a naturalistic sky, a tiger lies in a pink clearing, while mice run around him to pick at his teeth. The artist has depicted a tiger instead of a lion, the two often being interchangeable in Indian art. The story takes place in China, and the lion had grown old and suffered from cavities, into which his food would get stuck. Mice would come and feed on those morsels between his teeth and disturb his sleep.