Saint Otilia from Plenarium, Plate 27 from Woodcuts from Books of the 15th Century
c. 1483, portfolio assembled 1929
Medium
Woodcut in black with pen and gray ink additions, and letterpress in black with rubrication (recto and verso), on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 6.7 × 7.6 cm (2 11/16 × 3 in.); Sheet: 28.3 × 21 cm (11 3/16 × 8 5/16 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129327
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
When is a book illustration not a book illustration? These leaves (1938.86.27 and 1938.88.52) were removed from their original texts in the early twentieth century and grouped into portfolios celebrating fifteenth and sixteenth-century book illustrations. Yet the Saint Otilia bears an early owner’s mark from her previous life, and this viewer or another early user has augmented the saint’s halo; the border of the altar showing Christ’s Resurrection; and the muscles on the soul escaping the mouth...