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This anonymous Persian anatomical illustration [Iran or Pakistan, ca. 1680-1750] depicts a man with his abdomen and chest opened to reveal the internal organs. In his right hand, he holds a second set of genitalia, and there is a sketch of the liver and gallbladder in the upper left corner. The artistic conventions employed in the production of this illustration indicate Western India as a place of production. The 16th- to 18th-century European convention of picturing partially dissected bodies as if they were alive, offering up parts of their own body for further inspection, can be seen here transferred to the Indian subcontinent. The anatomy of the exposed organs reflects indigenous Indian concepts as well as some medieval Galenic anatomy. This is one of six anonymous anatomical drawings on folia 554-559 at the end of a volume containing Tibb al-Akbar (Akbar's Medicine) by Muhammad Akbar, known as Muhammad Arzani (d. 1722/ 1134) in an undated copy probably made in the 18th century.
