Moses Receiving the Law

Description This miniature once formed part of a psalter where it faced the beginning of Psalm 77 (78), which in Byzantine usage opened the second half of the Psalms. It is a cutting from a volume on Mount Athos, Vatopedi Monastery MS 761. The latter manuscript can be dated precisely: the table on its fols. 3r-4v gives the dates of Easter for the years 6896-6919 (as calculated from the Creation of the world). The first of these corresponds to 1087-1088 CE and must be the year when the psalter was made.

Exhibitions

• Early Christian and Byzantine Art. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1947.
• Illuminated Manuscripts: Masterpieces in Miniature. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1984-1985.
• Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2004.

Provenance [Folio 111 in Mount Athos, Vatopedi MS 716 (formerly MS 609)]; Leon Gruel, Paris [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters