Leaf from a Book of Hours: Calendar Page for May (recto) (c. 1510): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Calendar Page for May (recto) (c. 1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This calendar page from a book of hours shows the month of May with an illumination of the labor of the month, falconry, the popular medieval sport of hunting with a trained bird of prey. A couple rides through the forest, a falcon on the man’s outstretched arm. May is also associated with fertility rites, and the next scene shows the amorous couple on a break from the hunt. Below are saint days honored in May. May 5th’s inclusion of Saint Audoennus, who was popular in Rouen, helps indicate that this book was made for use in that city.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Calendar Page for May (recto)
• Date: c. 1510
• Culture: France, Rouen
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and liquid gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 18.1 x 12.9 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2011.65.a

A detail from the museum

It is believed that medieval men and women read their books of hours aloud, not silently.

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.