The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
Large and well-separated Gothic textualis of a style fashionable in the late thirteenth century
Principal cataloger: Noel, William
Cataloger: Dutschke, Consuelo
Cataloger: Herbert, Lynley
Cataloger: Sciacca, Christine
Cataloger: Valle, Chiara
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Davis, Lisa Fagin
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Klemm, Elizabeth
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Pizzinato, Riccardo
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Miner Dorothy. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baltimore: The Walters Art Gallery with the Baltimore Museum of Art, 1949, p. 50, no. 137, fig. 53a.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 823, no. 395.
Wentzel, Horst. "Eine Deutsche Glasmalerei-Zeichnung des 14. Jahrhunderts." Zeitschrift für Kunstwissenschaft 12 (1958): 131-40.
Wadsworth Atheneum. Life of Christ. Hartford, 1948, p. 31, no. 180.
Kroos, Renate. "Der Codex-Gisle I: Forschungsbericht und Datierung." Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 12 (1973): p. 130, no. 27.
Los Angeles County Museum. Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts. Los Angeles, 1953, no. 82.
Brown University. Transformations of the Court Style: Gothic Art in Europe, 1270 to 1330. Providence, 1977, p. 136.
Robb, M. David. The Art of the Illuminated Manuscript. Cranbury, N.J: Philadelphia Art Alliance Press, 1973, p. 256, fig. 176.
Stechow, Wolfgang. "Emmaus." Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, ed. O. Schmitt Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1967, cols. 233-34, 241.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 56-57, p. 165 no. 33, figs. 79-80.
Diringer, David. The Illuminated Book: Its History and Production. London: Faber, 1967, p. 190.
Oliver, Judith. "The Walters Homilary and Westphalian Manuscripts." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): pp. 69-85.
Wentzel, Horst. "Ein Elfenbeinbüchlein zur passionsandacht." Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 24 (1962): p. 209, no. 40.
Miner, Dorothy. Anastasie and Her Sisters: Women Artists of the Middle Ages. Baltimore, 1974, pp. 14-18, figs. 4-5.
Roosen-Runge-Mollwo, Matie. "Ein illustriertes Blatt in Cleveland aus dem Wettinger Graduale." Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 31 (1974): pp. 97-109.
Swarzenski, Hans. "Review of Marie Mollwo, 'Das Wettinger Graduale.'" Phoebus 2 (1948): p. 45.
Comstock, Helen. "The Connoisseur in America: Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Books of the Walters Collection." Connoisseur 96 (1935): p. 346.
Miner, Dorothy. "Preparatory Sketches by the Master of Bodleian Douce MS. 185." In Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag. Artur Rosenauer, Gerold Weber, and Gertraut Schikola, ed. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1972, pp. 118-123, figs. 1-10; 17.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Lower Rhineland
First half of the 14th century CE
book
Non-original Binding
German sixteenth-century alum-tawed white pigskin, blind tooled over wood boards; back: four upper raised bands; blue and white headbands; each cover is ruled by triple fillets to form a rectangular disposition of frames and fillets around a central rectangle; the areas are filled with a close series of stamped impressions; strips decorated with vegetal motives alternate with impressed stamps; page edges painted in red; two brass catches
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Léon Gruel and Robert Engelmann, Paris, late nineteenth-early twentieth century, no. 139
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel and Engelmann before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Lower Rhineland
First half of the 14th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Léon Gruel and Robert Engelmann, Paris, late nineteenth-early twentieth century, no. 139
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel and Engelmann before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
Large and well-separated Gothic textualis of a style fashionable in the late thirteenth century
Principal cataloger: Noel, William
Cataloger: Dutschke, Consuelo
Cataloger: Herbert, Lynley
Cataloger: Sciacca, Christine
Cataloger: Valle, Chiara
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Davis, Lisa Fagin
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Klemm, Elizabeth
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Pizzinato, Riccardo
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Miner Dorothy. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baltimore: The Walters Art Gallery with the Baltimore Museum of Art, 1949, p. 50, no. 137, fig. 53a.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 823, no. 395.
Wentzel, Horst. "Eine Deutsche Glasmalerei-Zeichnung des 14. Jahrhunderts." Zeitschrift für Kunstwissenschaft 12 (1958): 131-40.
Wadsworth Atheneum. Life of Christ. Hartford, 1948, p. 31, no. 180.
Kroos, Renate. "Der Codex-Gisle I: Forschungsbericht und Datierung." Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 12 (1973): p. 130, no. 27.
Los Angeles County Museum. Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts. Los Angeles, 1953, no. 82.
Brown University. Transformations of the Court Style: Gothic Art in Europe, 1270 to 1330. Providence, 1977, p. 136.
Robb, M. David. The Art of the Illuminated Manuscript. Cranbury, N.J: Philadelphia Art Alliance Press, 1973, p. 256, fig. 176.
Stechow, Wolfgang. "Emmaus." Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, ed. O. Schmitt Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1967, cols. 233-34, 241.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 56-57, p. 165 no. 33, figs. 79-80.
Diringer, David. The Illuminated Book: Its History and Production. London: Faber, 1967, p. 190.
Oliver, Judith. "The Walters Homilary and Westphalian Manuscripts." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): pp. 69-85.
Wentzel, Horst. "Ein Elfenbeinbüchlein zur passionsandacht." Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 24 (1962): p. 209, no. 40.
Miner, Dorothy. Anastasie and Her Sisters: Women Artists of the Middle Ages. Baltimore, 1974, pp. 14-18, figs. 4-5.
Roosen-Runge-Mollwo, Matie. "Ein illustriertes Blatt in Cleveland aus dem Wettinger Graduale." Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 31 (1974): pp. 97-109.
Swarzenski, Hans. "Review of Marie Mollwo, 'Das Wettinger Graduale.'" Phoebus 2 (1948): p. 45.
Comstock, Helen. "The Connoisseur in America: Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Books of the Walters Collection." Connoisseur 96 (1935): p. 346.
Miner, Dorothy. "Preparatory Sketches by the Master of Bodleian Douce MS. 185." In Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag. Artur Rosenauer, Gerold Weber, and Gertraut Schikola, ed. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1972, pp. 118-123, figs. 1-10; 17.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
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