Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso) (c. 1415): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso) (c. 1415) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Boucicaut Master (French, Paris, active about 1410–25).

The work and its context

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

In a book of hours, the suffrages generally appear at the end of the manuscript and consist of prayers to particular saints, often illustrated by miniatures. Saints were the protectors and patrons of medieval people, and countless owners of books of hours must have been consoled by reciting these prayers and readings that contained elements of praise and pleas for intercession. This miniature introduces the suffrage to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, an early virgin martyr of the Christian Church cruelly killed by the Emperor Maxentius (died AD 312). The text begins: Gaude dulcis katherina virgo martr (Rejoice dear Catherine, virgin and martyr). Catherine appears with a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, and is flanked by Saints Geneviève and Margaret, two other virgin martyrs of the early church.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso)
• Date: c. 1415
• Creator attribution: Boucicaut Master (French, Paris, active about 1410–25)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, silver, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 16 x 11.2 cm (6 5/16 x 4 7/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2014.21.b

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.