Miniature, 'The Stag' with inscription and page-long overleaf. Painted shortly after the Mongol invasion, the Chinese influence is strong in the treatment of the clouds above the stags, and in certain details of the flowers. The page is from a dispersed Manafi al-Hayavan (on the uses derived from animals). The painting is the counterpoint to Byzantine painting.

Page from the Manafi al-Hayavan, 14th century

Unknown artist, expand_more

Ink and color on paperexpand_more

Gift of Mr. C. C. Webberexpand_more  41.58.1

Not on Viewexpand_more

This folio depicting two stags comes from a dispersed copy of a medical text titled Manafi al-Hayavan (On the Uses Derived from Animals); a Christian doctor who was a court physician to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad wrote the original in Arabic in a.d. 941. In the late thirteenth century, the Mongol ruler of Iran and Iraq, Ghazan Khan, ordered a copy of the Manafi to be translated into Persian. Because this leaf was copied from that volume shortly after the Mongol conquest of Persia, there is a strong Chinese influence in the stylized clouds above the stags and in the treatment of the flowers.

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Details
Title
Page from the Manafi al-Hayavan
Role
Artist
Accession Number
41.58.1
Curator Approved

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Miniature, 'The Stag' with inscription and page-long overleaf. Painted shortly after the Mongol invasion, the Chinese influence is strong in the treatment of the clouds above the stags, and in certain details of the flowers. The page is from a dispersed Manafi al-Hayavan (on the uses derived from animals). The painting is the counterpoint to Byzantine painting.