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

c. 1524

The Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States

This leaf and three others in the collection 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.

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  • Title: Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Calendar Page with Peasant (verso)
  • Date Created: c. 1524
  • Physical Dimensions: Leaf: 16.6 x 13.5 cm (6 9/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
  • Provenance: Arms of Mansfeld (16th century), Prussia, between Magdeburg and Merseburg; Compte d'Aspremont-Lynden (19th century); [Sotheby's, London, 23 June 1987, lot 99]; [Jörn Günther, Hamburg]; [Bruce Ferrini, Akron]
  • Type: Manuscript
  • Rights: CC0
  • External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.67.b
  • Medium: ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
  • Department: Medieval Art
  • Culture: Germany, Hildesheim (?), 16th century
  • Credit Line: The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
  • Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
  • Accession Number: 2011.67.b
The Cleveland Museum of Art

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