The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Sts. Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret (recto) and Text (verso)

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Sts. Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret (recto) and Text (verso)

c. 1415

workshop of Boucicaut Master

(French, Paris, active about 1410–25)
France, Paris
ink, tempera, silver, and gold on vellum
Leaf: 16 x 11.2 cm (6 5/16 x 4 7/16 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2014.21
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

A typical book of hours contains around a dozen suffrages or individualized prayers to specific saints.

Description

This leaf’s illumination includes Saints Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret, all early church saints, virgins, and martyrs. During the 1400s and 1500s, the popularity of female saints increased, as did the literacy rate among women, thanks to books of hours. Saint Genevieve is shown with a candle the devil is trying to extinguish while an angel relights it. Saint Catherine, in the center, holds a palm branch and a sword, with which she was executed. Saint Margaret stands on the dragon from whom she emerged clean and unharmed when the cross she carried irritated the dragon’s innards.
  • [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Jeanne Miles Blackburn]
    -2014
    Jeanne Miles Blackburn, Maitland, FL, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2014-
    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: p. 32, cat. no. 24; Recto Reproduced archive.org
  • The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours (Gallery 115 rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26, 2022-July 30, 2023).
    Main Gallery Rotation (Gallery 113), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 26, 2015-August 31, 2015).
    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=Leaf from a Book of Hours: Sts. Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret (recto) and Text (verso)|url=false|author=Boucicaut Master|year=c. 1415|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2014.21