Leaf Excised from an Antiphonary: Initial Q with Saints Peter and Paul (c. 1325): Art, History and Details

Leaf Excised from an Antiphonary: Initial Q with Saints Peter and Paul (c. 1325) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The sheet belonged to an antiphonary, a large liturgical book used by the choir for chanting. It contains all the music and texts needed for daily services in the church. In South Flanders, where this manuscript originates, the Confrérie des Charitables de Saint-Éloi has been active since 1188, when a plague wave raged in the region. This brotherhood was in charge of giving bread to the poor, caring for the sick, consoling the dying, burying the dead, and giving them a burial.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf Excised from an Antiphonary: Initial Q with Saints Peter and Paul
• Date: c. 1325
• Culture: South Flanders
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 32.3 x 21.9 cm (12 11/16 x 8 5/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2003.171

A detail from the museum

This leaf comes from a manuscript once owned by the famous Victorian art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), who removed some of its leaves to give away as gifts.

Collection credit

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. Catalogue of Valuable Books and Illuminated and Other Manuscripts: Comprising Books from the Library of the Late James Smith, Esq. ... Including Many Early Works of Travel in America ... Books from John Ruskin's Library ... Including Early English Literature ... Illuminated Horae ... Persian and Other Oriental Mss., Relics of Various Celebrated Authors. London: Dryden Press, J. Davy and Sons, 1913.
• Randall, Lilian M. C. Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.
• Manion, Margaret M., and Vera F. Vines. Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts in Australian Collections. Melbourne: Thames and Hudson, 1984.

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.