Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (recto) and Text (verso) (c. 1330–40): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (recto) and Text (verso) (c. 1330–40) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The crucified Christ was a central theme of medieval visual art. Each period set its own artistic and iconographic priorities, depending on the function and context of the works. For example, the dead Christ with his head bowed, the side wound dripping with blood, and the richly designed loincloth is characteristic of the 1300s. This miniature is from Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia), with its capital, Prague, as a leading art center of its time. The great plague, however, does not seem to have triggered a surge of innovation there.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Missal: The Crucifixion (recto) and Text (verso)
• Date: c. 1330–40
• Culture: Bohemia
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold leaf on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 35.4 x 23.5 cm (13 15/16 x 9 1/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1949.204

A detail from the museum

Below the cross a small skull is visible. Golgotha, the site of the Crucifixion, was often translated as "place of the skull."

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ricci, Seymour de. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, Supplement. New York: Bibliographical Society, 1961.
• Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, and Your Neighbor's Faith (Group). Religious Art from Byzantium to Chagall: [Catalogue of] a Loan Exhibition, Dec. 13, 1964 to Jan. 10, 1965. 1965.

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.