Getty Museum
Initial D: David Pointing to His Mouth
Creator
Master of the Ingeborg PsalterFrench Illuminator · 1195–1210
All works by this person →Scholars named the Master of the Ingeborg Psalter for a manuscript of the psalms he illuminated, together with another painter, for Queen Ingeborg of France. In the years around 1200, he was active in northeastern France. The style of the Master of the Ingeborg Psalter represents a turning point in the history of European painting, when artists left behind abstract and highly stylized forms in fav
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- after 1205
- Medium
- Tempera colors and gold leaf
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Manuscripts
- Institution
- Getty Museum
A demon tugs on David's cloak, tempting him to sin with his tongue, as warned against in the first line of the psalm: "I said I will heed my ways that I not sin with my tongue." The illuminator masterfully rendered David's jaw, clenched against the demon's temptation. An angel rushes in from the clouds and points to David's eye, which may be a reference to his lustful spying on Bathsheba. Medieval commentators associated Psalm 38 with David's sin of sending Bathsheba's husband to be killed in battle, leaving him free to pursue her.
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