Cleveland Museum of Art

Angels bring food to Jesus in the wilderness (folio 55 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier

Muhammad SharifLinkedCulture matchlcp-b3e61d8e4099

Date: 1602–4
Medium: Gum tempera, ink, color, and gold on paper
Culture: Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 163653

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

To end his 40-day fast, five angels brought Jesus refreshments from heaven: breads, melons each with a knife for convenient cutting, fresh leeks, and what appear to be fragrant rice dishes and curries, along with cups of wine. Four of the angels are dressed in robes, and one is clothed only in feathers. After his baptism, Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the desert where he fasted, practiced spiritual exercises, and successfully resisted the temptations of Satan. Many of the rocks in this painting have faces, called grotesques. This page is the only surviving folio from this manuscript that has an artist’s signature, written in the tiny pot by Jesus’s foot. The artist has put faces in the rocks, following a Persian convention.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
Provenance: before 1930s–2005: An Indian family in Great Britain, whose grandfather brought the manuscript to England in the 1930s or 1940s | 2005: (Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch Ltd., London, England, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 2005–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH