The Panther's Sweet Breath
Its breath alone draws every beast in the forest to follow — save one.
- Work
- Bestiary (Aberdeen Bestiary)
- Artist / creator
- Unknown English illuminator
- Origin & date
- England (probably the North Midlands), c. 1200
- Held by
- University of Aberdeen
Format
The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan's resolution supports sizes up to 8x10 cleanly.
This piece’s proportions are notably wider (or taller) than a standard print sheet — every size below shows the full, uncropped artwork with extra white border, not stretched or cropped to fill the page edge to edge.
Size
$24.00
The story
The panther sleeps for three days after eating, the bestiary says, then wakes and roars — and from its mouth pours a scent sweeter than any spice, drawing every beast in the forest to follow wherever it goes. Only the dragon, its ancient enemy, is struck with fear at the sound and flees underground, numb and motionless as though dead. This folio's gold-ground miniature catches the moment of gathering: the spotted panther at center, a stag, a goat, and a serpent-dragon coiled at the margin, already recoiling from a sweetness it alone cannot bear. The Aberdeen Bestiary reads the panther as a figure of Christ, who "descended from Heaven" to draw all people to himself by the sweetness of his own nature, while the devil-dragon, unable to endure his presence, retreats to the caves beneath the earth.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from University of Aberdeen’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Available as a Gold-Foil Premium Edition — a metallic accent print evoking the illuminator’s gold, for a piece from one of the tradition’s luminous, gilded manuscripts.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
See it framed
Room
Frame
Shown as a 8x10″ archival print, true to the piece's own proportions, on a real photographed wall.
From Bestiary & Marginalia
The Pelican in Her Piety
A mother bird wounds her own breast to feed her young with her blood.
The Phoenix
The bird that builds its own pyre and rises from the ash.
The Lion, King of Beasts
Two intertwined legends on one gold-ground folio — the roar that revives, the tail that erases the trail.
The Whale Mistaken for an Island
Sailors moor on its back mistaking it for land — until it dives.