A piece in the Principium series.
Crown of light wisdom and prudence.
Coroa de luz sabedoria e prudência.
The bust is by Anton Nuhn and dates from 1846, from "Chirurgisch-anatomische Tafeln (Abt. 1): Abbildungen der chirurgischen Anatomie des Kopfes und des Halses enthaltend".
The halo split in half is in fact a curious map of the inhabited world, in which the Horn of Africa can be made out, from ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing) by al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283/682). The copy was made in 1537, probably in western India. Neither the copyist nor the illustrator is recorded.
As for the bird illustrations: the Brazilian tanager is by François Nicolas Martinet (18th century), the nightingale comes from an 1890 British children's encyclopaedia (author unidentified), and the Thraupis cyanocephala is by William Swainson (1789–1855).
