Leaf from a Book of Hours: Christ Carrying the Cross (Sext, Hours of the Cross)
Unknown Artist
c. 1410–1420
Medium
ink, tempera and gold on vellum
Dimensions
17.2 × 12.1 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Accession Number
1999.127
About this artwork
Within books of hours, the Hours of the Cross normally received only one miniature, a Crucifixion, as its introduction. There are exceptions, however, and in some books of hours a Passion cycle of seven miniatures, one for each hour (except Lauds), might be found. The present leaf with its miniature of Christ Carrying the Cross would have been part of such a cycle of pictures in which it introduced the Hour of Sext (confirmed by the rubric, Ad Sextam). The composition shows Christ laboring to su...