Initial S from a Gradual: Saint Augustine (c. 1420): Art, History and Details

Initial S from a Gradual: Saint Augustine (c. 1420) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of the Murano Gradual (Italian).

The work and its context

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

This initial belongs to a large group of excised miniatures of saints once part of a gradual used in a Venetian Camaldolese monastery, probably San Michele on the island of Murano. The artist has shown a fondness here for unusual decorative features such as the band of pseudo-Arabic writing along the sleeve and the feathery-white scrolling leaves resembling shells.

Object facts

• Title: Initial S from a Gradual: Saint Augustine
• Date: c. 1420
• Creator attribution: Master of the Murano Gradual (Italian)
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 16.8 x 14.9 cm (6 5/8 x 5 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1954.257

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

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.