Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Fishing (verso) (c. 1500–1510): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Fishing (verso) (c. 1500–1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This leaf shows the second half of Psalm 142. The page’s first line reads, “Non avertas faciem tuam a me,” or “Turn not away thy face from me.” This last page of the penitential psalms immediately precedes the litany of saints, which begins on the other side of this leaf. Below the text stands an ape fishing at a small pond across from a large bird, a scene possibly from a fable or simply meant to be amusing or diversionary.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Fishing (verso)
• Date: c. 1500–1510
• Culture: France, Paris or Rouen, 16th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 18.1 x 12.9 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2006.13.b

A detail from the museum

The ape and the wild boar symbolized vice in general and lust in particular during the Middle Ages.

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.