Marginal Psalter

Description This manuscript, illustrated with 155 marginal paintings, is one the few surviving marginal psalters, in which images provide a pictorial commentary on the Biblical text. Other examples include the Khludov Psalter (ca. 850 CE, Moscow, State Historical Museum, Muz. 129), the Barberini Psalter (ca. 1050 CE, Vat. Barb. Gr. 372), the Theodore Psalter (1066 CE, London, British Library, Add. Ms. 19,352), and a Cyrillic psalter made in Kiev (1397 CE, Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, cod. OLDP, F6). The Walters' psalter was apparently copied from the same eleventh-century model as the Saint Petersburg manuscript, as the iconography of the two is very similar.

Exhibitions

• Splendor in Books. Grolier Club, New York; The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1977-1978.
• Illuminated Manuscripts: Masterpieces in Miniature. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1984-1985.
• Byzantine Gold: Illumination in Greek Manuscripts. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1986.
• The Psalms of David in the Middle Ages. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1996.
• To Arrest the Ravages of Time: Caring for Art at the Walters. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1996.
• The Sweet Uses of Adversity: Images of the Biblical Job. The Mitchell Gallery, Annapolis. 2002.
• Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2004.
• The Early History of the Bible: Transmission of Sacred Scripture from Ancient Times to the Age of Painting. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2005.
• The Early History of the Bible. Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix. 2007-2008.

Provenance Frederick North, fifth Earl of Guilford (d. 1827) [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Sir Thomas Phillipps (d. 1872), Middle Hill and Cheltenham, England, 1830, by purchase; Sotheby's and Co., London, sale of July 1, 1946; Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 1946, by purchase.

Credit Museum Purchase