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.
Provenance
Mansfeld Family, Prussia, between Magdeburg and Merseburg, Germany (1500s); Adrienne Louvignies Family (Mid 1500s); Compte d'Aspremont-Lynden (1800s); Brothers Michael Linel (1830-1892) and Albert Linel (1833-1916) of Frankfurt am Main, Germany (-1892); City of Frankfurt, Germany, for the Kunstgewerbemuseum, deaccessioned parent manuscript (1892-1953); [Sale: Sotheby's, London, 23 June 1987, lot 99, sold to Pairvel] (June 23, 1987); Pairvel (1987-); [Jörn Günther, Hamburg, Germany]; [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Jeanne Miles Blackburn]; Jeanne Miles Blackburn, Durham, NC, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art (-2011); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (2011-)
Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Calendar Page with Labors (recto) and Calendar Page with Peasant (verso)
[]c. 1524
Accession Number
2011.67
Medium
ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
Dimensions
Leaf: 16.6 x 13.5 cm (6 9/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
Classification
Manuscript
Credit Line
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection