Jesus being portrayed by King Abgar’s painter (folio 143 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier (1602–4): Art, History and Details

Jesus being portrayed by King Abgar’s painter (folio 143 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:

Jesus sits under a golden lamp with a cloth in his hand, while an artist sits before him, struggling to paint his portrait. The artist had been sent by his king, Abgar of Edessa, who was ill and believed the portrait would cure him. Jesus pitied the artist and pressed his face to the cloth to create a perfect impression. The miraculous cloth became known as the Mandylion and was venerated by Christians as a relic of Christ. The similarity between the names Abgar and Akbar suggests that Father Jerome included this noncanonical story in his biography of Jesus to resonate with and inspire the Mughal emperor.

Object facts

• Title: Jesus being portrayed by King Abgar’s painter (folio 143 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 15.6 cm (10 5/16 x 6 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2005.145.143.a

A detail from the museum

Artist’s pigments are arranged in shells next to the brass cup for water.

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.

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.