Leaf from a Book of Hours: Christ Carrying the Cross (Sext, Hours of the Cross) (c. 1410–1420): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Christ Carrying the Cross (Sext, Hours of the Cross) (c. 1410–1420) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Within books of hours, the Hours of the Cross normally received only one miniature, a Crucifixion, as its introduction. There are exceptions, however, and in some books of hours a Passion cycle of seven miniatures, one for each hour (except Lauds), might be found. The present leaf with its miniature of Christ Carrying the Cross would have been part of such a cycle of pictures in which it introduced the Hour of Sext (confirmed by the rubric, Ad Sextam). The composition shows Christ laboring to support the weight of the cross as he journeys to Calvary. The Virgin and Saint John appear at the far left as the group exits the gates of Jerusalem. In the background, the body of Judas is seen suspended from a tree high upon a hill.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Christ Carrying the Cross (Sext, Hours of the Cross)
• Date: c. 1410–1420
• Culture: France, Brittany(?), 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 17.2 x 12.1 cm (6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.127

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.
• Bruijn Kops, David de. "Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child." In Maelwael van Lymborch Studies. 3. , A. M. Koldeweij, and Rob Dückers, eds., 226-249. Turnhout: Brepols, 2025.

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.