Miniature Excised from a Psalter: Christ in Majesty with Symbols of the Four Evangelists (c. 1235): Art, History and Details

Miniature Excised from a Psalter: Christ in Majesty with Symbols of the Four Evangelists (c. 1235) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Christ is seated within a cusped frame representing his aura. He is surrounded by the four "living creatures"---the gospel writers---as envisioned by Saint John in his Apocalypse: a winged man (St. Matthew), a lion (St. Mark), an ox (St. Luke), and an eagle (St. John).

Object facts

• Title: Miniature Excised from a Psalter: Christ in Majesty with Symbols of the Four Evangelists
• Date: c. 1235
• Culture: England, Abbey of Peterborough(?), 13th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 18.9 x 13.9 cm (7 7/16 x 5 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1945.132

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Brummer Gallery Records. Cloisters (Museum), n.d.
• Milliken, William. "A Manuscript Page of the Thirteenth Century." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 7 (September 1946): 139-141.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.