The Gotha Missal (c. 1375): Art, History and Details

The Gotha Missal (c. 1375) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of the Boqueteaux (French); Workshop.

The work and its context

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

The style and quality of this manuscript's decoration is typical of deluxe Parisian books made for aristocratic or royal patrons. Most of the book's decoration appears to be the work of the Master of the Boqueteaux, an artist active at the court of King Charles V (died 1380). His style was apparently shared by a number of book illuminators working in and around Paris. It is very possible that the Gotha Missal belonged to Charles V, but is not provable because the manuscript has no royal portraits and lacks a colophon. Given the book's magnificent decoration, however, it would seem that it was produced for a Valois prince, if not for the king himself. The manuscript receives its name from the German dukes of Gotha, its later owners.

Object facts

• Title: The Gotha Missal
• Date: c. 1375
• Creator attribution: Master of the Boqueteaux (French); Workshop
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Bound Volume
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum; blind-tooled leather binding
• Dimensions: Codex: 28.3 x 20.6 x 4.8 cm (11 1/8 x 8 1/8 x 1 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1962.287

A detail from the museum

The artist received his name because of his tendency to draw trees that resembled little mushrooms.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• H.P. Kraus (Firm). Thirty-Five Manuscripts: Including the St. Blasien Psalter, the Llangattock Hours, the Gotha Missal, the Roger Bacon (Voynich) Cipher Ms. New York, N.Y.: H.P. Kraus, 1962.
• Wixom, William D. "A Missal for a King: A First Exhibition." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 7 (1963)
• “Acquisition” Museum News (October 1963)

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.