Early examples of Baghdad-school miniatures are illustrations from an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ medical treatise, De materia medica, dated 1224 (the manuscript is scattered among several private collections and museums). The paintings embody the traditional elements of the Baghdad school—strong colours, a well-developed sense of design, and expressive facial features. Frames do not appear; the miniatures illustrate the text and often appear between lines of it.
The miniatures made to illustrate manuscripts of the Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī, between 1225 and the fall of the city to the Mongols in 1258, were among the finest works in all Arab painting; the finest, most complete, and best-preserved of these manuscripts is that in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, dated 1237.