Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Ornamental Border with Pea Vines and a Girl Kneading Bread (recto) (c. 1524): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Ornamental Border with Pea Vines and a Girl Kneading Bread (recto) (c. 1524) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This leaf and the one nearby were excised from the same prayer book. They reveal the favored secular motifs that include decorations with animals, peasants, and domestic activities such as cooking. Here a woman is shown kneading bread. A composite text combining features of a psalter, a collection of psalms or religious verses, and a prayer book, it was used during Mass and other services. The original book was a highly personalized volume written and illuminated in or around the city of Hildesheim in Northern Germany, as suggested by the prominent inclusion of Saint Godehard, Bishop of Hildesheim (died 1038), in the calendar (not shown).

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook: Ornamental Border with Pea Vines and a Girl Kneading Bread (recto)
• Date: c. 1524
• Culture: Germany, Hildesheim(?), 16th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 16.6 x 13.5 cm (6 9/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.136.a

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.