The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adoration of the Magi (recto)

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adoration of the Magi (recto)

c. 1510
ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
Leaf: 19.5 x 13 cm (7 11/16 x 5 1/8 in.)
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2011.66.a
Location: not on view

Description

Characteristic of the artist's hand, the bright orange-reds combine with deep blues, greens, and an abundance of gold wash in this leaf. He used fine parallel lines or crosshatching in gold to indicate the shading, highlights, and texture of draperies, suggesting some knowledge of printmaking, an art for which Rouen was also an important center. His figures have large, thickly outlined oval faces. This miniature also demonstrates the emerging fashion in both Rouen and Paris for highly involved, Italianate architectural frames: winged putti, swags, urns, garlands, scallop shells, pillasters, and masks. These elements could be assembled in different ways so that no two frames were identical. Rouen in the late 1400s and early 1500s was an established and important center for book production. Richly decorated library texts and books of hours, such as the present leaves, were made in Rouen for sale in the cours des libraires, next to the cathedral.
  • Carlton R. Richmond
    October 30, 1981
    [Sotheby's, New York, NY 30 October 1981, lot 54]
    [Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, sold to Jeanne Miles Blackburn]
    -2011
    Jeanne Miles Blackburn, Maitland, FL and Durham, NC, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2011-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Sotheby's (Firm). Highly Important Illuminated Manuscripts. 1981. Lot 54
    Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 66, cat. no. 64 archive.org
  • 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: Adoration of the Magi (recto)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1510|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.66.a