Leaf from a Book of Hours: John on Patmos (1 of 2 Excised Leaves) (c. 1465): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: John on Patmos (1 of 2 Excised Leaves) (c. 1465) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of Jacques de Luxembourg (French).

The work and its context

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

The miniature of St. John comes from a cycle of evangelist portraits forming the lessons following the calendar. The Evangelist John is shown seated on the Island of Patmos, to which he was banished by the Roman Emperor Domitian. It was here, as tradition has it, that John composed his Book of Revelation. A common motif is the inclusion of a mischievous devil who attempts to distract the saint from his sacred work by stealing his ink bottle. The Master of Jacques de Luxembourg had a strong sense of visual detail, particularly in architecture, which he typically combined with a flair for narrative. This points to his origin in eastern France or Flanders, though he may have actually worked in Paris.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: John on Patmos (1 of 2 Excised Leaves)
• Date: c. 1465
• Creator attribution: Master of Jacques de Luxembourg (French)
• Culture: France, Eastern France or Paris (?), 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 23.7 x 18.6 cm (9 5/16 x 7 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2011.62

Collection credit

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Thompson, Henry Yates, and M. R. James. A Descriptive Catalogue of Fifty Manuscripts from the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson. Cambridge [England]: University Press, 1898.
• Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. Catalogue of Valuable Books and Illuminated and Other Manuscripts: Which Will Be Sold by Auction ... on Tuesday, the 3rd Day of May, 1904. London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 1904.
• 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.