The old man eats of the fruit of the Tree of Life, but drops dead, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Ninth Night

An old man eats the fruit of the Tree of Life, but drops dead. Lalu illustrated this scene c. 1560. Mughal India, during the court of Akbar.

The support is paper, with gum tempera, ink, and gold. The dimensions are not recorded in the museum’s documentation.

The painting is part of the Tuti-nama, or Tales of a Parrot. A collection of 52 stories, each told over the course of a night.

Lalu was active in the mid-1500s. Little is known about his life outside of his work in the Mughal court.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, https://clevelandart.org/art/1962.279.78.a

https://oolf.net/open-art/lalu-the-old-man-eats-of-the-fruit-of-the-tree-of-life-but-drops-/