Image: Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Arabian Nights Entertainments, The Husband and the Parrot (1948), New Canaan, CT

Description: Inscribed in Arabic: The Thousand and One Nights. Titling below image in Szyk’s hand: The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot. “The Parrot told him about the young Turk….” Arabian Nights. 5th Night. Pp. 62-64. The tales of the Arabian Nights are comprised of sixty –five stories told by Sharazade the Sultaness to divert Shahryar the Sultan from the execution of a vow he had made to avenge the disloyalty of his first Sultaness. The canny Sharazade spun her tales each evening with such skill and timing that her husband could not bear to kill her and thus lose such a splendid entertainer. The Fourth Entertainment tells the tragic story of a jealous merchant who purchased a parrot to spy upon his adulterous wife. Though the parrot told the truth about the cheating wife, both lose their life to the merchant’s rage. The full extent of Szyk’s miniature mastery is evident in this highly detailed image of the merchant dining in his opulent home. The stout husband is seated on a low dais, smoking a water pipe and gazing intently at the blue and yellow parrot. His unfaithful wife is seen at a window in the background, a look of terror upon her face. Each object in the house from the colorful carpet designs to the tiled walls, the coffee table and the parrot’s perch is intricately decorated using the jeweled colors of ruby, lapis and emerald. This illumination was printed as the Frontispiece to the Second Album of The Arabian Nights Entertainments.
Title: Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Arabian Nights Entertainments, The Husband and the Parrot (1948), New Canaan, CT
Credit: The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA 94070 (www.szyk.org)
Author: Arthur Szyk
Permission:   This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page. The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by an Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2015030210000935. If you have questions about the archived correspondence, please use the OTRS noticeboard. Ticket link: https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2015030210000935
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Attribution Required?: Yes