Miniature Excised from a Psalter: The Nativity (c. 1270): Art, History and Details

Miniature Excised from a Psalter: The Nativity (c. 1270) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This miniature survives with other fragments from a psalter preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It has been suggested that the manuscript may have been made for Queen Eleanor of Provence who became a nun of Amesbury in England following the death of her husband, King Henry III. The style and high quality of this miniature supports its association with a deluxe manuscript psalter made for a high-ranking patron.

Object facts

• Title: Miniature Excised from a Psalter: The Nativity
• Date: c. 1270
• Culture: England, London(?), 13th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 9.5 x 12.2 cm (3 3/4 x 4 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1924.427

Collection credit

Gift from J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Illuminated Miniatures in the Cleveland Museum of Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 12, no. 4 (April 1925): 61-71

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.