Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso) Text from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Automata) of Inb al-Razza al-Jazari (1315): Art, History and Details

Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso) Text from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Automata) of Inb al-Razza al-Jazari (1315) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The Arabic title of this work is Kitab fi ma'rifat al-hiyal al handasiyya (The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices). According to the description of the device illustrated on the other side of this page, the peacock is filled with water: as it flows into the vessel below, it raises a float that opens a door in the section above, causing the little figure to move forward offering soap; as more water flows, a second door will open and another figure will move forward offering a towel. Finally, the dirty water is drawn off by means of a spigot.

Object facts

• Title: Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso) Text from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Automata) of Inb al-Razza al-Jazari
• Date: 1315
• Culture: Syria, Damascus, Mamluk Period, 14th Century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink and opaque watercolor on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 31.3 x 21.5 cm (12 5/16 x 8 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1945.383.b

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. "Page from an Automata Manuscript." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 6 (June 1946): 85-87.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.