Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso) (c. 1430): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso) (c. 1430) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Representing God's entry into the world, the Nativity remains one of medieval painting's most poignant Christian images. In the Gospels, only Matthew and Luke directly described this event. Perhaps the brevity and absence of detail in these texts allowed artists to devote so much creativity to amplifying the Christmas story. This miniature's simplicity makes it compelling. Only the three principals—Mary, Joseph, and the newly born Christ child—appear in the scene. The Virgin kneels before an elegant canopied bed made sumptuous by a richly embroidered textile, which stands in contrast to the nearby rustic fence and receding landscape. This scene probably follows the mystical visions of Saint Bridget of Sweden who visited Bethlehem in 1370, and whose written accounts circulated widely after her canonization in 1391: "When her time came she took off her shoes and her white cloak and undid her veil. . . . Then she made ready the swaddling clothes which she put down beside her. When all was ready she bent her knees and began to pray. While she was thus praying with hands raised the child was suddenly born, surrounded by a light so bright that it completely eclipsed Joseph's feeble candle."

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Book of Hours: Text (verso)
• Date: c. 1430
• Culture: Northeastern France, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Leaf: 17 x 12.5 cm (6 11/16 x 4 15/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2014.23.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.