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 Psalter was made for, and most likely by, a group of Benedictine nuns at the abbey of saints Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, Germany. Although the Psalter itself, along with its calendar, dates to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, a number of texts and prayers were added in the mid thirteenth century. Most striking about the manuscript are its illuminations, which include a prefatory cycle, full-page miniatures, and historiated initials. While all are Romanesque in style, they vary greatly in quality and technique, and three or four different artists seem to have been at work. The Claricia Psalter takes its name from one of the initials, which depicts a young girl in secular dress swinging from the initial "Q," who has "Claricia" written around her head. It has been suggested that the image represents a novice artist who signed her work, but there are many other theories, and none are certain.
Written in documentary script
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Hamburger, Jeffrey
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Förstermann, Ernst Wilhelm. Die Gräflich Stolbergische Bibliothek zu Wernigerode. Nordhausen, Germany: Förstemann, 1866, p. 98(sic 89), no. Za51.
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. 769, no. 75.
Harrsen, Meta. Cursus Sanctae Mariae. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1937, p. 29, pl. 23.
Miner, Dorothy. Anastaise and her Sisters: Women Artists of the Middle Ages. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974, pp. 11-12, figs. 2-3.
Carr, A. W. "Women Artists in the Middle Ages." The Feminist Art Journal 5 (1976): 5-9, 26.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 18, 20-21, fig. 31.
Stokstad, Marilyn, Michael Watt Cothren, Frederick M. Asher, et al. Art History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 1995.
Pollock, Griselda, and Rozsika Parker. Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology. London: Pantheon, 1981, p. 16, fig. 9.
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.
Augsburg, Germany
Late 12th--early 13th century CE
book
Original Binding
Original (or possibly thirteenth- or fourteenth-century) beech boards covered by much-abraded leather with five metal bosses on upper and lower boards; remains of leather straps visible; thirteenth- or fourteenth-century charters used as pastedowns on both boards (lower board pastedown now numbered as final folio)
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Made in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century for an abbey in southern Germany, probably the Benedictine house of SS. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg
Bénigne-Charles Févret de Saint-Mémin (bookplate originally on front pastedown [no longer extant]) (provenance)
Prince of Stolberg-Wernigerode, Zeisberg sale, Wernigerode, October 10, 1854, no. 37
G. Schar, unknown date and mode of acquisition
Léon Gruel collection, Paris, late nineteenth/early twentieth century
Acquired by Henry Walters, Baltimore, from Gruel, before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters bequest
Augsburg, Germany
Late 12th--early 13th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Made in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century for an abbey in southern Germany, probably the Benedictine house of SS. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg
Bénigne-Charles Févret de Saint-Mémin (bookplate originally on front pastedown [no longer extant]) (provenance)
Prince of Stolberg-Wernigerode, Zeisberg sale, Wernigerode, October 10, 1854, no. 37
G. Schar, unknown date and mode of acquisition
Léon Gruel collection, Paris, late nineteenth/early twentieth century
Acquired by Henry Walters, Baltimore, from Gruel, before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters bequest
This Psalter was made for, and most likely by, a group of Benedictine nuns at the abbey of saints Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, Germany. Although the Psalter itself, along with its calendar, dates to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, a number of texts and prayers were added in the mid thirteenth century. Most striking about the manuscript are its illuminations, which include a prefatory cycle, full-page miniatures, and historiated initials. While all are Romanesque in style, they vary greatly in quality and technique, and three or four different artists seem to have been at work. The Claricia Psalter takes its name from one of the initials, which depicts a young girl in secular dress swinging from the initial "Q," who has "Claricia" written around her head. It has been suggested that the image represents a novice artist who signed her work, but there are many other theories, and none are certain.
Written in documentary script
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Hamburger, Jeffrey
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Förstermann, Ernst Wilhelm. Die Gräflich Stolbergische Bibliothek zu Wernigerode. Nordhausen, Germany: Förstemann, 1866, p. 98(sic 89), no. Za51.
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. 769, no. 75.
Harrsen, Meta. Cursus Sanctae Mariae. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1937, p. 29, pl. 23.
Miner, Dorothy. Anastaise and her Sisters: Women Artists of the Middle Ages. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974, pp. 11-12, figs. 2-3.
Carr, A. W. "Women Artists in the Middle Ages." The Feminist Art Journal 5 (1976): 5-9, 26.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 18, 20-21, fig. 31.
Stokstad, Marilyn, Michael Watt Cothren, Frederick M. Asher, et al. Art History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 1995.
Pollock, Griselda, and Rozsika Parker. Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology. London: Pantheon, 1981, p. 16, fig. 9.
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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