Leaf from a Book of Hours: Presentation in the Temple with Roundels of the Casting of Lots, the Deposition, and Pietà (None, Office of the Virgin) (c. 1460–70): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Presentation in the Temple with Roundels of the Casting of Lots, the Deposition, and Pietà (None, Office of the Virgin) (c. 1460–70) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of Adélaïde de Savoie (French, active c. 1450–70).

The work and its context

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

The style of this miniature, with its oval faces, abundant draperies, and use of border roundels, follows very closely the characteristics of the Master of Adélaïde de Savoie, who takes his name from a book in Chantilly (Musée Condé, MS. 1362). His activity points to Poitiers in western France as a possible place of production for this piece. The miniature features the unusual placement of roundels showing scenes taken from Christ's Passion against an episode from the life of the Virgin. The main miniature, the Presentation in the Temple, depicts the bringing of the infant Jesus to the Temple forty days after his birth to be consecrated according to Jewish law. During the ceremony, the temple's priest, Simeon, foretold that "Mary's heart would be pierced through her child." The roundels visually dovetail the central miniature.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Presentation in the Temple with Roundels of the Casting of Lots, the Deposition, and Pietà (None, Office of the Virgin)
• Date: c. 1460–70
• Creator attribution: Master of Adélaïde de Savoie (French, active c. 1450–70)
• Culture: France, probably Poitiers, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 11.2 x 9 cm (4 7/16 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2001.78

A detail from the museum

The images and decorated initials in the book helped users navigate to sections they needed while also offering details to provoke meditation and prayer, leading to books of hours sometimes being referred to as “painted prayers.”

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.