Cleveland Museum of Art

The Magi Follow the Star (folio 34 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier

Payag

Date

1602–4

Medium

Gum tempera, ink, 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

One of the three kings points excitedly at the star at the upper left edge of the page, while another bites the finger of astonishment; the third holds his fist over his heart. They are all dressed like Portuguese merchants, but they ride camels associated with their homeland in Arabia, as specified in the text. The Westerners whom Mughals would have seen, besides priests, were mainly merchants from the Portuguese port of Goa on India’s western coast. They regularly visited Akbar to negotiate trade agreements, so they served as the primary visual model for all nonclerical Europeans. The artists who produced this manuscript worked for Akbar before joining Prince Salim at his rebel court in Allahabad. At the breakaway court of Prince Salim in Allahabad, high-quality materials were not as plentiful as in the imperial capital. The paper is brittle and has browned excessively, and the paint films are relatively thin; here the text from the verso shows through the lightly colored background.

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