Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D (c. 1400): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D (c. 1400) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This leaf presents an extravagant visual feast that is both colorful and delicate. The parent codex to which this leaf belonged, still intact as recently as 1983, was made for use in the Diocese of Soissons. The manuscript listed Saint Medard of Soissons in its litany, which suggests that Soissons was also the city where the manuscript was made. A prayer to Saint Anne written in an Italian hand is also in the manuscript, and may indicate that it was taken to Italy during the 1400s.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D
• Date: c. 1400
• Culture: France, probably Soissons, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 15.5 x 11.5 cm (6 1/8 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2005.203

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.