The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

Cutting from a Gradual: Initial I with Departure of Tobias

Cutting from a Gradual: Initial I with Departure of Tobias

c. 1390
(Italian)
Italy, Florence, 14th century
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
Leaf: 17.8 x 17.4 cm (7 x 6 7/8 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2011.68
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The volume from which this leaf comes is located at the central library of the Augustinian Province of Italy.

Description

The Master of Noah’s Ark was named after an illuminated initial containing that subject now in the Vatican Library. Though he may have worked in Florence, he was unlikely to have been Florentine himself. This rare miniature depicts the story from the apocrypha of Tobias, son of Tobit, a devout Jew in exile who is blind and destitute. Sent out to visit relatives in a distant city in order to find a means of supporting the family, the young Tobias is guided by the Archangel Raphael. This miniature shows the sad and traumatic moment of Tobias’s departure in “continuous narrative” within the same scene (right to left). Within the doorway Tobit and his wife, Anna, are apprehensive. In the center, Tobit prays to God, represented here as the Trinity with two faces and the flame of the Holy Ghost. On the left, Tobias departs with his staff over his shoulder. This initial I would have introduced the text Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam ad me (Turn your ear, O Lord, and hear me). It marks the opening of the 15th Sunday after Pentecost and the beginning of the Introit to the Mass.
  • Sir Kenneth Clark, Saltwood Castle, Kent (1903-1983)
    July 3, 1984
    [Sale, Sotheby's, London, 3 July 1984, lot 88]
    [H. Kraus, New York, NY]
    [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Ms. Jeanne Miles Blackburn]
    -2011
    Ms. Jeanne Miles Blackburn, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2011-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 75, cat. no. 73 archive.org
    Signorello, Lucrezia "Musica picta restituta. La libreria di coro di Sant'Agostino di Siena e il ritrovamento dei cutting miniati," Analecta Augustiniana Vol. LXXXC (2022). p. 256-7, 280, 288, note 95, fig. 33-34
    Signorello, Lucrezia, "Cutting e dintorni. La Libreria di coro di Sant'Agostino de Siena tra conservazione e dispersione," Teca Vol. 12 No. 6ns (2022). p. 37, note 32, figs 5-6, doi.org
    "Viterbo, Archivio storico, Biblioteca centrale e Raccolte artistiche della Provincia Agostiniana d'Italia, Siena, Convento di Sant'Agostino, ms. 4" Manus Online: Manuscripts in Italian Libraries, (2023).
     CNMD\0000293487 manus.iccu.sbn.it
  • Italian Choral Books of the Renaissance (Manuscript Rotation) - Gallery 115. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 10, 2015-December 12, 2016).
    The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 19, 1999-February 27, 2000).
  • {{cite web|title=Cutting from a Gradual: Initial I with Departure of Tobias|url=false|author="Master of Noah's Ark"|year=c. 1390|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.68