The Magi Follow the Star (folio 34 recto), from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier
attributed to Payag (Indian)
1602–4
- Medium
- Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Manuscript
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 26.2 x 15.7 cm (10 5/16 x 6 3/16 in.); Image: 20.6 x 10.9 cm (8 1/8 x 4 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Mughal India, Allahabad, made for Prince Salim (1569–1627)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
One of the three kings points excitedly at the star at the upper left edge of the page, while another bites the finger of astonishment; the third holds his fist over his heart. They are all dressed like Portuguese merchants, but they ride camels associated with their homeland in Arabia, as specified in the text.
The Westerners whom Mughals would have seen, besides priests, were mainly merchants from the Portuguese port of Goa on India’s western coast. They regularly visited Akbar to negotiate trade agreements, so they served as the primary visual model for all nonclerical Europeans. The artists who produced this manuscript worked for Akbar before joining Prince Salim at his rebel court in Allahabad.
