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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1965.478
Title
Verbascum Plants (painting with text, recto and verso), illustrated folio from a manuscript of the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides
Other Titles
Series/Book Title: De Materia Medica
Classification
Manuscripts
Work Type
manuscript folio
Date
1224
Places
Creation Place: Middle East, Iraq, Baghdad?
Period
Abbasid period
Culture
Arab
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/216249

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions
folio: 33 x 24 cm (13 x 9 7/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Meta and Paul J. Sachs, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs. old notes also have name of F.R. Martin

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs
Accession Year
1965
Object Number
1965.478
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Translations into Arabic of scientific and philosophical treatises from the Greco-Roman world laid a critical foundation for the advances made by Muslim physicians, scientists, and mathematicians. De materia medica, on the therapeutic properties of natural substances — plants, minerals, and animals — was written about two thousand years ago by the Greek author Dioscorides. Widely translated, emended, and supplemented, the text served as the basis for writing on pharmaceuticals and herbs until the end of the sixteenth century in Byzantium, western Europe, and the Middle East.
The manuscript from which these folios come has attracted considerable scholarly attention for its inclusion of animal and human figures. Although extraneous to the text, the figures provide a view of medieval Muslims in the last decades of the Abbasid caliphate. On this page two birds create a symmetrical composition on the leaves of the plant Verbascum (mullein), which, properly concocted, soothes coughs, toothaches, eye inflammations, and ulcers.

Publication History

  • Laurence Binyon and J. V. S. Wilkinson, Persian Miniature Painting: Including a Critical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Miniatures Exhibited at Burlington House, January-March, 1931, exh. cat., Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (London, England, 1933), p. 27, no. 14d
  • M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Exhibition of Islamic Art, exh. cat. (San Francisco, 1937), p. 26, no. 22d
  • Max Meyerhof, Die literaturischen Grundlagen der arabischen Heilmittellehre, Ciba Zeitschrift (1942), vol. VIII, pp. 2957-92, p. 2968
  • Hugo Buchthal, Early Islamic Miniatures from Baghdad, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery (1942), vol. V, pp. 19-36, p. 21, nos. 2-3, figs. 5-6
  • Max Meyerhof, The Background and Origins of Arabian Pharmacology, Ciba Symposium (1944), vol. VI, pp. 1847-56, p. 1855
  • Ernst Grube, Materialien zum Dioskurides Arabicus, Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst: Festschrift für Ernst Kühnel zum 75. Geburtstag am 26. 10. 1957, ed. Richard Ettinghausen (Berlin, 1959), p. 173, no. 4
  • Wilson Bishai, Humanities in the Arabic-Islamic World, W.C. Brown Co. (Dubuque, Iowa, 1973), Pg. 102
  • Marianna Shreve Simpson, Arab and Persian Painting in the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1980), pp. 9, 11, 15, 18-19, no. 2, ill.
  • Roche Products on the Market, brochure, F.Hoffman-La Roche & Co. (Cairo, November 1981)

Exhibition History

  • Arab and Persian Painting, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 02/10/1981 - 03/09/1981
  • Diverse are their Hues: Animals in Islamic Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/18/1984 - 02/09/1985
  • Islamic Art: The Power of Pattern, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/23/1989 - 01/17/1990
  • Paintings for Princes: The Art of the Book in Islam, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/27/1990 - 03/25/1990
  • 32Q: 2550 Islamic, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 05/14/2015

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu