The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 19, 2024
Leaf from a Choir Psalter: Initial B with King David in Prayer
c. 1460–1470
(Italian)
Leaf: 54 x 37.5 cm (21 1/4 x 14 3/4 in.)
Location: not on view
Description
Psalters contained all 150 biblical psalms. Specific pages within the psalter were decorated with historiated initials to highlight the liturgical divisions. In addition to providing embellishment, such initials served as a visual aid to the user to assist in locating a text. The most prominent of these was Psalm 1, which begins Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum (Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly), and which traditionally featured the grandest initial of all. An enlarged B was customarily filled with a scene representing King David, the author of the Psalms. Here David kneels in prayer within a bright green landscape of craggy rocks and trees. Above, God the Father, with orb in hand, looks down from heaven as he blesses David with his right hand. The author of the initial is named after a missal he illuminated for Marco Barbo, Bishop of Treviso, from 1455 to 1464 (now in Padua). He worked mainly in Lombardy and the Veneto during the 1450s and 1460s, and manuscripts illuminated by him are known to have been destined for patrons in Brescia and Padua.- Collection d'ancienne Librairie Mam, Tours; [Sandra Hindman]; [Bruce Ferrini, Akron]
- Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 79, cat. no. 77 archive.org
- Italian Choral Books of the Renaissance (Manuscript Rotation) - Gallery 115. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 10, 2015-December 12, 2016).Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 115): December 7, 2015 -Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 117): June 17, 2013 - January 14, 2014,The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 19, 1999-February 27, 2000).CMA, 19 December 1999 - 27 February 2000, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, cat. 77, illus. p. 79.
- {{cite web|title=Leaf from a Choir Psalter: Initial B with King David in Prayer|url=false|author=Maestro del Messale Barbo|year=c. 1460–1470|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.70