A woman mistakes a cow for the Angel of Death, from a Lights of Canopus (Anwar-i Suhaili) of Kashifi (Iranian, d. 1504) (c. 1610): Art, History and Details

A woman mistakes a cow for the Angel of Death, from a Lights of Canopus (Anwar-i Suhaili) of Kashifi (Iranian, d. 1504) (c. 1610) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In this gently colored, amply shaded painting, an ailing girl lies listless, eyes barely open, as an attendant fans her. A cow who got her head stuck in a pot has entered the yard in confusion. The girl’s mother, who had been weeping and praying to exchange her own life for the health of her daughter, thought the Angel of Death had come to take her. Pointing to heaven, the woman begs that her daughter be taken instead. Outside the gate, a wandering holy man dozes, indicating this scene takes place in the evening, and a calf annoys her mother as she eats.

Object facts

• Title: A woman mistakes a cow for the Angel of Death, from a Lights of Canopus (Anwar-i Suhaili) of Kashifi (Iranian, d. 1504)
• Date: c. 1610
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Jahangir (1605–1627)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 19.7 x 10.2 cm (7 3/4 x 4 in.); Framed: 38.1 x 26.7 cm (15 x 10 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2019.81

A detail from the museum

A previous owner identified the scene as the first cesarean section.

Collection credit

Gift of Michael Silver and Deborah Lader in memory of Rabbi Daniel Jeremy Silver

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.