Cisa (Jesus) and the Dead Dog, Khamsa (Quintet), in Persian, Persia, probably Shiraz between 1488 and 1490 - 115 x 98 mm - Niẓāmī Ganjavī (ca. 1141–1209)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1911, MS M.468, fols. 22v–23r

Item description:

The Makhzan alasrār  (Treasury of Secrets) is the first (ca. 1175) of five long narrative poems making up Niẓāmī's Khamsa (Quintet). Through example, its twenty discourses deal with religious and ethical topics. Here, in an illustration of the tenth discourse, Jesus encounters a dead dog, about which three men make cruel remarks. But Jesus, disregarding faults and finding virtue, tells them that pearls are not as white as the dog's
teeth. The moral: do not seek the faults of others and your own merit, but turn your eyes to yourself. The flaming halo denotes Christ as a prophet and saint.

http://www.themorgan.org/collection/treasures-of-islamic-manuscript-painting/97