The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 26, 2024
Leaf from a Book of Hours: Office of the Dead: Two Devils (verso)
c. 1460
circle of Coëtivy Master
(French)
Leaf: 19.7 x 14.3 cm (7 3/4 x 5 5/8 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2005.206.b
Location: not on view
Description
As a time-saving device, illuminators in the 1450s and later would often paint identical borders on both sides of a leaf. The motifs would be drawn on one side and then traced on the other by holding the leaf against a window. Both sides of this leaf are therefore mirror images, containing elaborate floral borders, gold-leaf ivy vines, sprays of flowers or fruit, and a grotesque, in this case a bird with the head of a man. Also included is a roundel featuring two devils. This leaf is from a dismantled manuscript that included numerous painted roundels relating to the lives of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the more obscure Saint Alexis.- [Bruce Ferrini, Akron]
- Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 52, cat. no. 49 archive.org
- {{cite web|title=Leaf from a Book of Hours: Office of the Dead: Two Devils (verso)|url=false|author=Coëtivy Master|year=c. 1460|access-date=26 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2005.206.b