The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 15, 2024

Leaf from a Psalter: The Crucifixion

Leaf from a Psalter: The Crucifixion

c. 1300–1330
ink, tempera and gold on vellum
Leaf: 9.4 x 7.3 cm (3 11/16 x 2 7/8 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2011.54
Location: not on view

Description

The diocese of Liège was extremely active as a production center for psalters and psalter-hours from the second half of the 1200s through about 1330. This market, no doubt, was stimulated by the need of women for a devotional text. As women were drawn to the convents of religious orders such as the Dominicans, the Beguines and Begards, and the Poor Clares, they had need of a book that would provide them with suitable devotional material. The psalter was the book that these women, many of whom were high-born, most commonly used. The present leaf, with its monumental miniature of the Crucifixion, and like many surviving 13th-century psalters, may have thus provided visual focus for the prayers of a woman in a convent setting. Customarily, the level of quality and the extent to which these books were decorated depended upon the means of the patron.
  • [Bruce Ferrini, Akron]; [Sotheby's, London, 1 December 1987, lot 11]
  • Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 22, cat. no. 14 archive.org
    George, Philippe. Art et Patrimoine en Wallonie des Origines à 1789: Essai de Synthèse à la Lumière des Collections Américaines et Européennes. Namur: Institut du Patrimoine Wallon, 2017. Reproduced: p. 201, fig. 302
    Gertsman, Elina and Barbara H. Rosenwein. The Middle Ages in 50 Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Mentioned: p. 176-179; Reproduced: p. 177
  • The Netherlandish Miniature, 1260-1550 (Manuscript Rotation) - Gallery 115. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 16, 2013-December 8, 2014).
    Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 115): December 16, 2013 - December 8, 2014.
    The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 19, 1999-February 27, 2000).
    CMA, 19 December 1999 - 27 February 2000, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, cat. 14, illus. p. 22
  • {{cite web|title=Leaf from a Psalter: The Crucifixion|url=false|author=|year=c. 1300–1330|access-date=15 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.54