Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device (recto); Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso)
Unknown Artist
1315
Medium
opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions
31.3 × 21.5 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Islamic Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1945.383
About this artwork
This leaf from a 1315 Syrian copy of Ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī’s The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, written in 1206, depicts a peacock basin automaton for ritual hand washing. There are 15 surviving manuscript copies of al-Jazarī’s work, ranging from the early 13th to the late 19th century. An engineer from upper Mesopotamia, al-Jazarī was in the service of King Nasrī al-Dīn when he completed his masterwork, an anthology of automated devices including clocks, trick vessels for ...