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Leaf from a Book of Hours: Saint James the Greater
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The illuminator of this leaf is one of a group of painters and workshops collectively known as the "Masters of the Gold Scrolls," named after the gold tendrils that frequently, but not always, occupy the backgrounds of the group’s compositions. The present miniature is by one of the Gold Scrolls’ finest hands. From the 1440s onward, the gold scroll motif begins to disappear in their miniatures and replaced, as here, by landscape. Saint James the Greater is shown as a Christian pilgrim. The miniature would have appeared in the Suffrages of the book of hours.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineLeaf from a Book of Hours: Saint James the Greater, c. 1440–1450. Master of the Gold Scrolls (Belgian). Ink, tempera and gold on vellum; leaf: 14.9 x 11.2 cm (5 7/8 x 4 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection, 2011.59
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