Leaf from a Latin Bible: Initial A and Initial A: Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1230–1240): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Latin Bible: Initial A and Initial A: Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1230–1240) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Leber Group (French).

The work and its context

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

This pair of leaves survives with at least 13 sister leaves from the same Bible that are now in other collections. Their miniatures have been variously assigned to the Dominican Group, the Dominican Painter, and the Leber Workshop. This lack of precision suggests the difficulty often encountered in isolating individual styles in the highly formalized milieu of 13th-century Paris. The ornament, figure style, and facial details of the initials bear closest comparison with manuscripts produced in a workshop active in Paris known as the Leber Group. With its precise ornamental vocabulary, the Leber Group's style may be identified by the elaborate outgrowths extending into the margins from the initials (known as ascenders and descenders). These are characterized by cusped edges and spiraling terminals, lotus petals, and meandering hybridized animal forms, the latter often terminating in winged, dragon-like creatures. Compartmentalized initials, featuring multiple scenes, are also commonly found in manuscripts of the Leber Group.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Latin Bible: Initial A and Initial A: Judith Beheading Holofernes
• Date: c. 1230–1240
• Creator attribution: Leber Group (French)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink and tempera on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 14.8 x 10.4 cm (5 13/16 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2005.207

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.