Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Massacre of the Innocents (1 of 2 Excised Leaves) (c. 1300–1330): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Massacre of the Innocents (1 of 2 Excised Leaves) (c. 1300–1330) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Books of Hours were Christian devotional books with texts, prayers and psalms for Christian devotion which were written primarily for laymen. They were popular in circles of the rich, educated nobility. Just like this leaf, which was probably made in France at the beginning of the 14th century, the pages of the Books of Hours often show elaborate decoration to invite the reader to take a closer look. After the great plague, individual piety flourished and the Book of Hours also experienced its heyday, especially in France and Flanders.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D: Massacre of the Innocents (1 of 2 Excised Leaves)
• Date: c. 1300–1330
• Culture: Northeastern France or Flanders
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 13 x 9.7 cm (5 1/8 x 3 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.126

A detail from the museum

This page was part of the prayers for compline or the night prayer said at the end of the day before retiring, usually around 7 p.m.

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.