Initial I with Elimelech and Naomi: Leaf from a Latin Bible (c. 1250): Art, History and Details

Initial I with Elimelech and Naomi: Leaf from a Latin Bible (c. 1250) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johannes Grusch Atelier (French).

The work and its context

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

The Johannes Grusch Workshop is named for the priest responsible for copying one of its bibles in 1267. The shop first appeared on the scene during the late 1230s, and an oeuvre of thirty-nine manuscripts has been identified. The workshop's oldest dated work is a missal made for Rouen Cathedral between 1235 and 1245. The style expressed by the Grusch artist consists of flat little figures with inked draperies of a fairly irregular sort. The bodies have white heads with small features, like the short-bearded chins of the men and pursed mouths. A large number of painters were apparently associated with this workshop, which changed its style considerably over its thirty-year period of activity. Its painting can be divided into early, middle, and late styles.

Object facts

• Title: Initial I with Elimelech and Naomi: Leaf from a Latin Bible
• Date: c. 1250
• Creator attribution: Johannes Grusch Atelier (French)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 15 x 10 cm (5 7/8 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.123

Collection credit

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999.

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.