Jesus Raises Jairus’s Daughter from the Dead (folio 82 verso), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier (1602–4): Art, History and Details

Jesus Raises Jairus’s Daughter from the Dead (folio 82 verso), 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 gestures toward the 12-year-old girl he has awakened from the dead, in a lesser-known miracle included in Father Jerome’s text. The elder of a synagogue, the girl’s father, named Jairus, had shown great faith in Jesus and had begged him to help his daughter; Jairus may be the figure dressed as a Jesuit in a dark cloak and tall matching cap behind Jesus. Jesus admonished the crowd to tell no one about the miracle, but people turn and gesture to one another, unable to keep from spreading the news.

Object facts

• Title: Jesus Raises Jairus’s Daughter from the Dead (folio 82 verso), 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: Sheet: 26.3 x 15.7 cm (10 3/8 x 6 3/16 in.); Image: 19.5 x 11.4 cm (7 11/16 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2005.145.82.b

A detail from the museum

Miracle stories were significant components of Christian conversion efforts.

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.