Creative Commons License
Bookbinding with a medallion of the Virgin
(Renaissance Europe )
The half-length figure of the sorrowful Virgin is turned three-quarters to the left. She is dressed in a blue mantle lined with violet, which covers her head, and a red robe.
The medallion is inset in the lower cover of a 20th-century gold-tooled morocco binding by Léon Gruel, Paris, which covers a 16th-century Flemish manuscript, Walters W.425. On the upper cover the binder used a modern enameled medallion of Christ, coped after a medallion attributed to Jean Limosin in the Schevitch Collection.
In the original arrangement the Virgin would have been contemplating the resurrected Christ, according to the iconography of the theme, "Et prima vidit."
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Peter Marié [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Sale, New York, 1903, lot 567; George H. Richmond [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
France, Limoges (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 1 5/16 x W: 15/16 in. (3.3 x 2.4 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
44.647B