A raven brings food to Elijah (folio 72 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier, (1602–4): Art, History and Details

A raven brings food to Elijah (folio 72 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier, (1602–4) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Old Testament prophet Elijah sits like an Indian holy man on a raised rocky platform under a tree. A raven has come to bring him bread and meat until the river runs dry, as commanded by God. Father Jerome recounted the story of Elijah to explain a reference made by Jesus in the context of his being rejected by the people of Nazareth, where he grew up. The unusual combination of Elijah’s salmon pink and light blue garments draws the viewer’s attention to him as the focus of the composition and echoes the paler hues of the sky.

Object facts

• Title: A raven brings food to Elijah (folio 72 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier,
• Date: 1602–4
• Culture: Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, color, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 26.2 x 15.7 cm (10 5/16 x 6 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2005.145.72.a

A detail from the museum

A working man and two goats are depicted in the nearby river.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• O’Malley, John W., Gauvin A. Bailey, and Giovanni Sale. The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773. 1st English ed. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005.
• Carvalho, Pedro de Moura, and W. M. Thackston. Mirʼāt al-quds (Mirror of holiness): a life of Christ for Emperor Akbar: a commentary on Father Jerome Xavier's text and the miniatures of Cleveland Museum of Art, Acc. no. 2005.145. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.