Leaf from a Psalter: Initial D: David at the Altar on the Threshing Floor of Ornan (c. 1270–80): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Psalter: Initial D: David at the Altar on the Threshing Floor of Ornan (c. 1270–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

An impressive eight-line initial represents a kneeling David praying before an altar amid stylized topiaries and set against a burnished gold ground. The text introduces Psalm 101: Domine exaudi orationem meam (Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my crying come unto thee). Facial types for the figures are rather coarse, with hard lines and sharp expressions and very schematic drawing of the hair and poses are rigid and angular. Hard drapery patterns emphasize the triangular folds and the marginal outgrowth of the initial D terminates as a standing bird. Stylistically, these leaves relate to English work of about 1275–1300, possibly from the vicinity of Oxford.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Psalter: Initial D: David at the Altar on the Threshing Floor of Ornan
• Date: c. 1270–80
• Culture: England, Oxford(?)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 17.9 x 13.5 cm (7 1/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2006.8

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.