The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Calendar Page with Labors (recto) and Calendar Page with Peasant (verso)

Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Calendar Page with Labors (recto) and Calendar Page with Peasant (verso)

c. 1524
(?)
ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
Leaf: 16.6 x 13.5 cm (6 9/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2011.67
Location: not on view

Description

These three leaves represent the charming, intricate decoration found throughout the parent volume, its leaves now dispersed. Virtually every border, recto and verso, was decorated with liquid gold and highlighted with a variety of flowers, fruits, and vegetables—carnations, thistles, roses, violets, peas, melons—as well as cornucopias, satyrs, masks, insects, birds, etc. The decoration is particularly charming because of the little vignettes within the borders. These motifs depict a girl kneading bread, a cook ladling soup, a goose nibbling grapes off a vine, and a satyr with a horn. Such details would have been a sumptuous delight to the original owner. This was a highly personalized volume, apparently written and illuminated in North Germany. The prominent mention of Saint Godehard (died 1038), Bishop of Hildesheim, in the original manuscript suggests that it was produced in that city.
  • 1500s
    Mansfeld Family, Prussia, between Magdeburg and Merseburg, Germany
    Mid 1500s
    Adrienne Louvignies Family
    1800s
    Compte d'Aspremont-Lynden
    -1892
    Brothers Michael Linel (1830-1892) and Albert Linel (1833-1916) of Frankfurt am Main, Germany
    1892-1953
    City of Frankfurt, Germany, for the Kunstgewerbemuseum, deaccessioned parent manuscript
    June 23, 1987
    [Sale: Sotheby's, London, 23 June 1987, lot 99, sold to Pairvel]
    1987-
    Pairvel
    [Jörn Günther, Hamburg, Germany]
    [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Jeanne Miles Blackburn]
    -2011
    Jeanne Miles Blackburn, Durham, NC, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2011-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Schilling, Rosy, and Georg Swarzenski. Die illuminierten Handschriften und Einzelminiaturen des Mittelalters und der Renaissance in Frankfurter Besitz. Frankfurt a.M.: J. Baer, 1929. no.151 pp.181–83
    Sotheby's (Firm). Western Manuscripts and Miniatures. 1987. Lot 99
    Jörn Günther Antiquariat (Firm), and Jörn-Uwe Günther. Recent Acquisitions: Medieval & Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts. Hamburg: Jörn Günther Antiquariat, 1997.
    Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 67, cat. no. 65 archive.org
    Bloomsbury Auctions (Firm). Western Manuscripts and Miniatures: Wednesday July 6, 2022 (2022). Lot 114
  • {{cite web|title=Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Calendar Page with Labors (recto) and Calendar Page with Peasant (verso)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1524|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.67