Detail View: The AMICA Library: Historiated Initial D with The Trinity: Excised Leaf from a Psalter

AMICA ID: 
CMA_.1999.125
AMICA Library Year: 
2001
Object Type: 
Books
Creator Name: 
Master of the Queen Mary Psalter
Creator Nationality: 
European; British
Creator Role: 
artist
Creator Dates/Places: 
c. 1380 - 1439
Creator Name-CRT: 
Master of the Queen Mary Psalter
Title: 
Leaf from a Psalter: Initial D: The Trinity
Title Type: 
Primary
Title: 
Historiated Initial D with The Trinity: Excised Leaf from a Psalter
Title Type: 
Former
View: 
Full View
Creation Date: 
c.1310
Creation Start Date: 
1305
Creation End Date: 
1315
Materials and Techniques: 
ink, tempera and gold on vellum
Classification Term: 
Manuscript
Dimensions: 
Each leaf: 26.7cm x 17.5cm
AMICA Contributor: 
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location: 
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number: 
1999.125
Credit Line: 
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Rights: 
Provenance: 
Parish church of St. Botulph at Iken in Suffolk; [Sotheby's, London, 10 December 1969, lot 36 (for sister leaves)]; [Bruce Ferrini, Akron]
Context: 
Follower of the Master of the Queen Mary Psalter (England, East Anglia)Leaf from a Psalter:Initial D: The Trinity, about 1310Ink, tempera, and gold on vellumThe Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection CMA 1999.125[Cat. no. 15 ]The text of Psalm 109 is introduced by a large initial "D" for Dixit dominus domino (The Lord said unto my Lord), within which appears the Trinity. In the early days of the Christian Church, artists were reluctant to represent naturalistically the first person of the Trinity (God the Father), who, being unseen was also unknowable. By the 12th century, however, northern artists began to portray God the Father in human form, along with Christ, seated to his right, and the Holy Ghost, symbolized by a dove. Psalm 109 is nearly universally interpreted as God the Father speaking to Christ. In French and English psalters, God and Christ are typically enthroned together, with the dove descending between them.The white flesh tones, elegant wavy coiffures, and elongated fingers of the figures relate this leaf to what is probably the most "Parisian" of all surviving English illuminated manuscripts of the early 1300s, the Queen Mary Psalter (London, British Library), named after the 16th-century English queen who seems to have once owned it. The workshop of the Queen Mary Psalter was active in East Anglia from about 1310 to 1335, though its specific location remains unknown. It presumably competed with workshops in Norwich, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, and the so-called "Fenland" workshops.
Related Image Identifier Link: 
CMA_.1999.125.tif