page_title: Physician Preparing an Elixir
section_title: History of the specific object
hierarchical_section_title: Physician Preparing an Elixir / History of the specific object
caption_attribution_description: recto: outdoor scene with mad dog biting man
context_page_description: The Physician Preparing an Elixir is a miniature on a folio from an illustrated manuscript copy, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York of De Materia Medica, a large herbal or work on the medical uses of plants originally written by the ancient Greco-Roman physician, Pedanius Dioscorides, in the first century AD. This page of the manuscript, dated 1224 AD, is made from paper, sized 24.8 cm wide and 33.2 cm long, and is decorated by opaque watercolor, ink, and gold detailing. It is visually split into three horizontal portions from the top of the page to the bottom; the top of the page is dominated by two lines of Arabic script, followed by the image and then five more lines of text in Arabic. The writing below the image is predominantly black with the exception of one line, which is written in red ink and is therefore highlighted to the viewer. The page is usually not on display.
  Experts believe that the image was made in Iraq, Northern Jazira or Baghdad. Its Middle Eastern origin is corroborated with the physician’s appearance. In the image, he is wearing a headscarf, his clothing is quite colorful and it is detailed with gold decorations.
context_section_description: In 1913, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York received the folio after a history of European ownership. As far as the records show, this page of the manuscript was first collected by F. R. Martin of Stockholm in 1910. F.R. Martin also originally possessed additional folios that came from other copies of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica such as the image titled “Men Stepping on Grapes” which is now also at the MMA.  The central folio page, “Physician Preparing an Elixir,” was then moved to the care of Georges. J. Demotte in Paris until 1913 when it was officially acquired by the museum. Demotte was a Belgian-born Parisian art dealer of the late 19th to early 20th century who also gave many different art and archaeological finds to the Metropolitan Museum. Demotte has become known for his acquisition of the Islamic “Book of Kings” or the Shahnameh, which he sold page by page to different interested parties.
  The fact that this page is from a highly translated text, De Materia Medica, may distort some of our analysis due to the great changes a literary work undergoes during translation.  As the Materia Medica became widely spread and translated into multiple languages, this page and others may have traveled with physicians or along trade routes to reach new destinations and communities. Therefore, this text, as illustrated by its aesthetic and geographical origins in the Middle East, could display a very different side of the Materia Medica genre. It is possible that this page was an addition, performed by Middle Eastern physicians, in the 13th century and did not exist as a part of the early Materia Medica’s during the time of Dioscoride. Additionally, though the original five-volume text was an assemblage of information, perhaps for the aim of practical instruction, this page seems to diverge from that initial focus. It is esthetically pleasing, apparently quite valuable as shown by the gold detailing, and overall, seems to have been a precious object as shown by the minimal wear and tear depicted on its page on the MMA website. Therefore, one can assume that at least this page was not a highly circulated text within the Middle Eastern community. Perhaps this text was kept among scholars and through this seclusion in academic society, remained in good condition.
caption: A man bitten by a rabid dog, another page from the same manuscript
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