Skip to main content

Moon

FREE MAN’S GUIDE TO THE SUBTLETIES OF POETRY

A cross-legged figure holds a crescent to personify the moon. This style for depicting the moon was popular in Iran and the rest of the Islamic world in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The gender of the figure is unclear; the expression “moonfaced” was used for both men and women to suggest their beauty.

This folio comes from a fourteenth-century poetic anthology in Persian which includes illustrated auguries. Here the verse atop of the page mentions the passage of the moon through the sign of Pisces: “With moon in Pisces, study learning and theology, make requests from ministers and judges, wear whaterver new clothes you possess, abstain from bleeding.”

Object Number

F1946.14

Date

1341 (AH 741), Mongol period, Il-Khanid dynasty

Place of Origin

Iran

Medium

Opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper

Dimensions

H × W (paper): 19.5 × 13.4 cm
(7 11/16 × 5 1/4 in.)

Credit line

Purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment