Leaf from a Gradual with Historiated Initial (G): Mary as Queen of Heaven (c. 1425–1450): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Gradual with Historiated Initial (G): Mary as Queen of Heaven (c. 1425–1450) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This initial G introduces the Feast of the Assumption (August 15) in the gradual, a choir book used for singing the Latin Mass. The historiated initial bears the image of the Virgin, alone and unaccompanied by saints, borne aloft by angels. The Virgin was believed to have been assumed into heaven, body and soul, three days after her death. Here she is surrounded by a host of angels who play musical instruments, suggesting the celestial realm.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Gradual with Historiated Initial (G): Mary as Queen of Heaven
• Date: c. 1425–1450
• Culture: Italy, Lombardy, Milan?, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 42 x 30 cm (16 9/16 x 11 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1928.652

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "A Florentine Illumination." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 32, no. 1 (January 1945): 5-7.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Wixom, William. "Traditions in the Chaumont Tapestries." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48, no. 7 (September 1961): 182-190.

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.