Bifolio from an Antiphonary: Historiated Initial O with the Nativity (early 1400s): Art, History and Details

Bifolio from an Antiphonary: Historiated Initial O with the Nativity (early 1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This splendid bifolium (a sheet folded in half to form two leaves) once formed part of an important antiphonary produced for an unidentified Benedictine monastery in Bohemia. With its rich illumination, it provides an important example of Bohemian painting during the opening years of the 15th century as well as painting in the city of Prague, one of the great court centers of Europe. The decoration of the leaf is dominated by a majestic initial O that depicts the Nativity. A scene in the background shows the angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to the Shepherds. The initial itself is placed within a square frame outside of which a single Benedictine monk observes the sacred event. The initial introduces the Latin chants for the first vespers of Christmas Day: O iuda et iherusalem (“Oh Judea and Jerusalem”). Framing the text are luxurious, scrolling acanthus leaves. Within the upper margin, two prophets emerge from the lush, foliated tendrils to observe the nativity below. In this way, the foretelling of the birth of Christ in the Old Testament is established visually.

Object facts

• Title: Bifolio from an Antiphonary: Historiated Initial O with the Nativity
• Date: early 1400s
• Culture: Bohemia, Prague, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 56.8 x 38.9 cm (22 3/8 x 15 5/16 in.); Framed: 61.6 x 76.8 cm (24 1/4 x 30 1/4 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 55.9 cm (28 x 22 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1976.100

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Austria. Europäische Kunst um 1400: achte Ausstellung unter den Auspizien des Europarates. Wien: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1962.
• Schmidt,Gerhard "Fragmente eines Böhmischen Antiphonariums des frühen 15 Jahrhunderts (ehemals in Seitenstetten) und eine Marientod-Initiale der Rosenwald Collection," Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, XXII (1969).
• J. Kiasa, Umeni 18 (1970).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.