Angels bring food to Jesus in the wilderness (folio 55 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier (1602–4): Art, History and Details

Angels bring food to Jesus in the wilderness (folio 55 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 museum's creator attribution is Muhammad Sharif (Indian, active c. 1600).

The work and its context

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

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.

Object facts

• Title: Angels bring food to Jesus in the wilderness (folio 55 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier
• Date: 1602–4
• Creator attribution: Muhammad Sharif (Indian, active c. 1600)
• Culture: Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, color, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.2 x 15.7 cm (10 5/16 x 6 3/16 in.); Image: 20.5 x 11.3 cm (8 1/16 x 4 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2005.145.55.a

A detail from the museum

The artist has put faces in the rocks, following a Persian convention.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.

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.