Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Flight into Egypt (2 of 2 Excised Leaves) (early 1300s): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Flight into Egypt (2 of 2 Excised Leaves) (early 1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These initials introduce the text Deus in adiutorium meum intende (God come to my assistance). The borders include playful animals or humans engaged in assorted activities: a dog catching a hare; a lion; a peacock; and a woman winding yarn. The illuminators of books of hours, like the artists of psalters before them, continued to explore the possibilities suggested by open space on the page in order to showcase their ingenuity and delight the reader.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Flight into Egypt (2 of 2 Excised Leaves)
• Date: early 1300s
• Culture: Northern France or Flanders, early 14th Century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 13 x 9.7 cm (5 1/8 x 3 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2011.56

A detail from the museum

All books of hours contain the same basic sections and were highly customizable.

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.