Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Hunting Wild Boars (recto) (c. 1500–1510): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Hunting Wild Boars (recto) (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:

Following the psalms is the litany of saints, identified by the blue text reading Letania. This repetitive list proceeds through a hierarchy beginning with God the Father and continuing through many saints. From each individual, the reader could ask for forgiveness. This list was customizable, allowing the reader to include saints important to them or their family. Surrounding the text is a scene of an ape hunting wild boars, symbols of vice and lust, that could perhaps be from a fable or merely be amusing or diversionary.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Hunting Wild Boars (recto)
• 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.a

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.