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:

Not all books of hours were decorated with conventional historiated initials or full-page miniatures containing figural scenes. The illuminator of this leaf incorporated a more subtle decorative scheme consisting of a large, flower-filled initial D for Deus that gives a focus to the page. A rectangular bar border with ivy leaf sprays punctuated with flowers in the corners flows from this initial. The layout is neat, yet elegant. The palette of orange-reds and pale blues is typically English.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D
• Date: c. 1400
• Culture: England, early 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 15.2 x 11.4 cm (6 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2006.10

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.