Mary Magdalene Presents Ointment to Jesus (folio 102 verso), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier (1602–04): Art, History and Details

Mary Magdalene Presents Ointment to Jesus (folio 102 verso), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier (1602–04) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

While Jesus dined in the house of a Pharisee he was approached by Mary Magdalene, who threw herself to the ground and wept on Jesus’s feet with her tears. She then dried them with her hair and bathed them with expensive ointment. Her veil falls around her shoulders to reveal her hair’s disarray. Only Jesus appears to be calm as he extends his arms in a pacifying gesture; the other men point at their mouths and at each other, astonished at the dramatic behavior of this woman known to have been a prostitute. The plain black carpets and thin application of paint in some areas indicate that this painting was not finished.

Object facts

• Title: Mary Magdalene Presents Ointment to Jesus (folio 102 verso), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier
• Date: 1602–04
• Culture: Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, color, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.4 x 15.7 cm (10 3/8 x 6 3/16 in.); Image: 20.5 x 10.3 cm (8 1/16 x 4 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2005.145.102.b

A detail from the museum

Proportions of the portico and pavilion reveal some grasp of Renaissance ideals.

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.