Details:Guillaume Vrelant, born in Utrecht, was known to be in Bruges from 1454 onward where he died around 1481. He probably went there to sidestep a 1427 law which banned the sale of Utrecht images. A painter very much in vogue, he founded the Illuminators’ Guild in Bruges under...
Details:The Coronation of the Virgin or Coronation of Mary is a subject in Christian art, especially popular in Italy in the 13th to 15th centuries, but continuing in popularity until the 18th century and beyond. Christ, sometimes accompanied by God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form...
0:00/0:431×Details:The style and quality of this manuscript's decoration is typical of deluxe Parisian books made for aristocratic or royal patrons. Most of the book's decoration appears to be the work of the Master of the Boqueteaux, an artist active at the court of King...
0:00/1:021×Details:These two pages come from a prayer book which belonged to Claude of France (1499-1524), queen consort of France. Claude was the daughter of the French king Louis XII and Anne of Brittany and the first wife of king Francis I of France. She...
Leaf from an Antiphonary Coronation of the Virgin Cleveland Museum of Art0:00/0:291×Details:The unidentified illuminator of this leaf is named after his work on a painted triptych that once hung behind the altar of the Church of Santa Maria del Ponte in the small village...
Details:The Ascension of Jesus (anglicized from the Vulgate Latin: ascensio Iesu, lit. 'ascent of Jesus') is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising into Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to the New Testament narrative, the Ascension occurred on the fortieth...
Details:Also known as the "Poor Men's Bible," the Biblia Pauperum was a simple picture book used to explain biblical prophecies and symbolism. These volumes served as an aid for preachers to demonstrate the unity of the Bible. The iconography of these popular books juxtaposed two Old Testament scenes with...
Details:On this leaf, lively figures tell the story of Christ’s Crucifixion and of his appearances after the Resurrection. They are part of an extensive picture cycle from an early 14th-century book disassembled almost 200 years ago, its illustrated pages now scattered in libraries and private collections. The text...
Details:This colorful metalcut was removed from a 1480 missal printed by Bartholomew Gothan and Lucas Brandis in Magdeburg. That volume also included a Crucifixion and other images from the same anonymous artist’s set of large metalcuts, using the same separately cut border plate for each different center plate....
Details:This masterful initial M, colorful and crowded with playful animals and fantastic forms, recalls the announcement to the Virgin Mary by the Angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a son: Missus est Gabriel Angelus ad Miriam Virginem. . . . (The Angel Gabriel was sent to Mary. . . .), the response for...
Details:Psalters were commonly used in monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages; the exact origin of this detached psalter leaf, however, is unclear. Stylistically it relates to a small number of manuscripts produced at Prüfening Abbey near Regensburg and to other examples associated with scriptoria at Augsburg from the...
Details:This large initial A introduces the matins (about 2:30 AM) response for Easter: Angelus Domini descendit de celo... (An angel of the Lord descended from heaven...). The letter that begins the text is commonly and appropriately decorated with a depiction of this Easter morning event. The three holy...
Details:Early devotional woodcuts are exceedingly rare today because, ironically, they were such a common part of fifteenth-century life. Available by the thousands from peddlers or monastics and at shrines and fairs, these images were carried around, tacked up for use as home altars, sewn into clothing, and prayed to...
Details:These leaves are from a lectionary (a book of gospel readings used in church services) that was presented to the Holy Trinity Monastery at Chalke in Constantinople by the Empress Katherine Komnene in 1063. The tools of the scribe's trade are laid out before the evangelists: a stylus (a...
Details:The original owner of this exquisite book of hours was Queen Isabella of Spain, who sponsored Christopher Columbus's exploratory voyage to the Americas. Eventually this book found its way to the New World and was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1963. Isabella’s book of hours...
Details:Gutenberg's Bible appeared in 1455. The first book to combine his invention with printed illustrations appeared in 1463. At about the same time, perhaps a little earlier or a little later, a different kind of printed illustrated book-the blockbook-began to appear. Gutenberg's catered to a literate audience, which was...
Please Subscribe or Donate to Help Keep This Site Free! This splendid crucifixion scene originally served as the canon illustration in a liturgical missal. The open landscape is remarkable since it is not found in Dutch missals before the end of the 1500s. The large number of figures at the...
Please Subscribe or Donate to Help Keep This Site Free! In the late 1400s and early 1500s Rouen was an established and important center of book production. The city’s cathedral had a wealthy chapter that spent large sums of money to commission books and to maintain its extensive library....
Please Subscribe or Donate to Help Keep This Site Free! This leaf was excised from a volume of a large set of choral books known to have been commissioned by Bartolomeo delle Rovere for Ferrara Cathedral. Delle Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, was the Bishop of Ferrara from 1474...
This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration...
Jesus hangs on the cross, his attenuated arms stretched far apart. He looks down at his grieving mother, whose flowing draperies emphasize her swooning posture. By depicting him with an elongated torso, uncomfortably crossed legs, and an elegantly drooping head, the artist emphasized Jesus' human suffering and frailty. The Roman...
This miniature, cut from a book of Old Testament prophets made in Sicily, presents the first of the prophet Zechariah's eight visions, a subject rarely depicted in art. Zechariah stands on the left, next to an angel who points to a man mounting a red horse. The angel explains to...
This illuminated leaf shows a painting of the baptism of Christ. At the left side of the page, John the Baptist sprinkles the water of the Jordan River on Christ’s head. The dove of the holy spirt descends from the heavens, and an angel attends at right, its wings...
The reverse side of the Morgan Picture Bible leaf continues the story of David and his rebellious son Absalom. On the upper left, the armies of David and Absalom meet in a fierce battle. Horses and knights overlap each other in the confusion of combat, with the knights raising their...
