The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 17, 2024

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man (Prefatory Miniature to the Office of the Virgin) (recto) and Text with Illustrated Border (verso) (1 of 3 Excised Leaves)

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man (Prefatory Miniature to the Office of the Virgin) (recto) and Text with Illustrated Border (verso) (1 of 3 Excised Leaves)

c. 1510
ink, tempera, and liquid gold on vellum
Each leaf: 17.9 x 12.8 cm (7 1/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2001.79
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

This image opens to what is the heart of every book of hours, the Hours of the Virgin, a set of prayers in which the reader asked the Virgin Mary to intercede on their behalf.

Description

This leaf came from a highly customized and lavish book of hours made in Rouen, a major center for book production at the time. Intended for a female patron, the book, of which the museum owns three leaves, contained numerous illuminations. Shown here are Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, just before disobeying God by eating fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, considered the first sin in Christianity. This precedes the Hours of the Virgin’s traditional first scene of the Annunciation. Its inclusion emphasizes a need for redemption through recitation of the subsequent prayers.
  • Carlton R. Richmond
    October 30, 1981
    [Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 30 October 1981, lot 54]
    1981-
    [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Jeanne Miles Blackburn]
    -2001
    Jeanne Miles Blackburn, Maitland, FL, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2001-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Sotheby's (Firm). Highly Important Illuminated Manuscripts. 1981. no. 54
    Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 65, cat. no. 63 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).
    Imagining the Garden. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 24, 2015-March 6, 2016).
  • {{cite web|title=Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man (Prefatory Miniature to the Office of the Virgin) (recto) and Text with Illustrated Border (verso) (1 of 3 Excised Leaves)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1510|access-date=17 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2001.79