Leaf from a Book of Hours: Office of the Dead: Two Devils (verso)
c. 1460
Medium
ink, tempera and gold on vellum
Dimensions
19.7 × 14.3 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Accession Number
2005.206.b
Tags
About this artwork
As a time-saving device, illuminators in the 1450s and later would often paint identical borders on both sides of a leaf. The motifs would be drawn on one side and then traced on the other by holding the leaf against a window. Both sides of this leaf are therefore mirror images, containing elaborate floral borders, gold-leaf ivy vines, sprays of flowers or fruit, and a grotesque, in this case a bird with the head of a man. Also included is a roundel featuring two devils. This leaf is from a dism...
About the Artist
Coëtivy Master (French)
Georges Hugnet (1906–1974) was a multifaceted French artist, poet, writer, and critic whose innovative collages and graphic works bridged Dada and Surrealism. Born in Paris on July 11, 1906, he spent much of his early childhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, returning to France around 1913. His early life and artistic training remain sparsely documented, with no records of formal art school attendanc...