Leaf from a Psalter: Initial D: A Fool Rebuked by God
Unknown Artist
c. 1300–1320
Medium
ink, tempera and gold on vellum
Dimensions
10.7 × 7.8 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Accession Number
2011.55
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The decorative marginal outgrowths, or extenders, of this initial include an assortment of drolleries—grotesque, often hybridized little figures that typically engage in amusing and diversionary activities. Drolleries are often shown playing musical instruments. Here one may be seen playing a vielle, an early stringed instrument played with a bow. The profusion of drolleries and whimsical marginalia in illuminated manuscripts, especially psalters, became increasingly popular around 1300, a pheno...