Leaf from a Book of Hours: Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man (Prefatory Miniature to the Office of the Virgin) (recto) and Text with Illustrated Border (verso) (1 of 3 Excised Leaves)
Unknown Artist
c. 1510
Medium
ink, tempera, and liquid gold on vellum
Dimensions
17.9 × 12.8 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Accession Number
2001.79
About this artwork
This leaf came from a highly customized and lavish book of hours made in Rouen, a major center for book production at the time. Intended for a female patron, the book, of which the museum owns three leaves, contained numerous illuminations. Shown here are Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, just before disobeying God by eating fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, considered the first sin in Christianity. This precedes the Hours of the Virgin’s traditional first sc...