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Leaf from a Book of Hours: Sts. Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret (recto) and Text (verso)
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
This leaf’s illumination includes Saints Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret, all early church saints, virgins, and martyrs. During the 1400s and 1500s, the popularity of female saints increased, as did the literacy rate among women, thanks to books of hours. Saint Genevieve is shown with a candle the devil is trying to extinguish while an angel relights it. Saint Catherine, in the center, holds a palm branch and a sword, with which she was executed. Saint Margaret stands on the dragon from whom she emerged clean and unharmed when the cross she carried irritated the dragon’s innards.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineLeaf from a Book of Hours: Sts. Geneviève, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret (recto) and Text (verso), c. 1415. Workshop of Boucicaut Master (French, Paris, active about 1410–25). Ink, tempera, silver, and gold on vellum; leaf: 16 x 11.2 cm (6 5/16 x 4 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection, 2014.21
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