MIT Museum

Major collection: Hart Nautical
Named collection: Allan Forbes Collection
Object type: engraving
Maker: Picart, B.; Du Bose, C.
Place made: United Kingdom, Greater London, London
Date made: 1722-1744
Materials: ink; paper; mounting
Measurements: 7 1/2 in x 10 in
Nomenclature: religious
Classification: whales

Monochrome engraving showing two scenes in separate borders. In the first scene, subtitled "Premiere incarnation". a four-armed figure in a crown rises out of the mouth of a fish that stands on its tail. In his hands are a conch, a sword, a ring, and a book. Floating in the air to his left is a four-headed, four-armed figure seated on a cushion shaped like a lotus. All of his heads are bearded and he wears a large crown that covers all of them. In his hands are a book, a conch, a strand of beads, and one of the strands of beads around his neck. On the ground lies a beheaded creature with a body similar to a shell and a head with horns. Behind this stand four figures facing right, their hands clasped in prayer. In the second panel, subtitled "Seconde incarnation." is a crowned figure with four arms seated atop a lotus cushion, which itself sits atop a column. A large snake is wrapped around the column and figures are pulling on either end of it: on the right, a human figure and a figure resembling the four-headed king in the first panel, and on the left, two figures with human bodies and monkey-like heads with horns. The figure on the lotus cushion carries the same objects in his hands. In the background is an elephant, a cow, two pots floating in the air, and a horse with seven heads.

AF-LX-1449