Fragment from a Lectern Bible: Initial E[t fecit Josias] with Josiah Aspersing the Altar (c. 1300): Art, History and Details

Fragment from a Lectern Bible: Initial E[t fecit Josias] with Josiah Aspersing the Altar (c. 1300) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master Honoré (French, Paris, active 1288–1300).

The work and its context

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

This initial comes from a large bible (about 23 inches high) and introduces the opening text of the Book of Esdras: Et fecit Josias in Jerosolymis Domino (When Josiah celebrated the Passover festival in Jerusalem to his Lord). The artist, a close follower of Master Honoré at Paris, set his figure against a diapered ground of alternating gold and blue diamonds with fleur-de-lys. Instead of portraying Josiah as a Jew, however, the artist abandoned historical perspective and painted him as a Christian priest sprinkling the altar with holy water in preparation for the Mass.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment from a Lectern Bible: Initial E[t fecit Josias] with Josiah Aspersing the Altar
• Date: c. 1300
• Creator attribution: Master Honoré (French, Paris, active 1288–1300)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 10.5 x 8 cm (4 1/8 x 3 1/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1924.428

Collection credit

Gift from J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Illuminated Miniatures in the Cleveland Museum of Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 12, no. 4 (April 1925): 61-71

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.