Cleveland Museum of Art
Leaf from a Book of Hours: Ape Fishing (verso)
- Date
- c. 1500–1510
- Medium
- ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
- Culture
- France, Paris or Rouen, 16th century
- Department
- Medieval Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 164614
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This leaf shows the second half of Psalm 142. The page’s first line reads, “Non avertas faciem tuam a me,” or “Turn not away thy face from me.” This last page of the penitential psalms immediately precedes the litany of saints, which begins on the other side of this leaf. Below the text stands an ape fishing at a small pond across from a large bird, a scene possibly from a fable or simply meant to be amusing or diversionary. The ape and the wild boar symbolized vice in general and lust in particular during the Middle Ages.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
- Provenance
- [Sotheby's, London, 3 July 1984, lot 127] | [Graton and Graton, Evanston, Ill.] | -2006: Ms. Jeanne Miles Blackburn, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 2006-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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