Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (Frontispiece for the Canon of the Mass) (c. 1440–1450): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (Frontispiece for the Canon of the Mass) (c. 1440–1450) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of Otto van Moerdrecht (Netherlandish).

The work and its context

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

This splendid crucifixion scene originally served as the canon illustration in a liturgical missal. The open landscape is remarkable since it is not found in Dutch missals before the end of the 1500s. The large number of figures at the foot of the cross is also exceptional. The composition is thought to have been copied from a painting by Jan van Eyck, now lost. The painter of this miniature derives his name from the illuminations in the Old Testament commentary of Nicholas of Lyra, which Otto van Moerdrecht, canon of Utrecht Cathedral, gave to the nearby Carthusian monastery of Nieuwlicht in 1424. The style is found in several manuscripts traced to various towns in the North Netherlands. Recent scholarship points to a group of artists working in the same style in locations such as Guelders, Utrecht, and elsewhere, as opposed to one artist who moved from place to place.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (Frontispiece for the Canon of the Mass)
• Date: c. 1440–1450
• Creator attribution: Master of Otto van Moerdrecht (Netherlandish)
• Culture: North Netherlands, Augustinian Cloister of Agnietenberg, near Zwolle, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 33.6 x 25.5 cm (13 1/4 x 10 1/16 in.); Framed: 63.5 x 48.3 cm (25 x 19 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 40.6 cm (22 x 16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1959.254

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wixom, William D. “A Dutch Crucifixion Miniature.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 4 (April 1963): 58–64.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.