LEAVES OF GOLD MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATION PHILADELPHIA COLLECTION

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Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illuminations from Philadelphia Collections, by James Tanis (guest curator).

This book was the catalog for an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts sponsored by the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries and on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts in 2001-2002. This exhibition catalog is designed to bring some highlights of manuscript illumination in Philadelphia collections not only to scholars but to all lovers of medieval and Renaissance art. Eighty of the region's most significant manuscripts, chosen from among more than five hundred volumes and two thousand leaves, are pictured and described. Professor James R. Tanis, Director of Libraries and Professor of History Emeritus at Bryn Mawr College was the guest curator for Leaves of Gold. The catalog details the illuminations, and offers scholarly essays on the history and composition of the manuscripts. Selected by Tanis and coeditor Jennifer Thompson, these essays highlight some less-familiar illuminations. Particularly infromative is an essay on the complete construction of a medieval manuscript, from the slaughter of the calf for vellum to finishing off the binding. 

Hardcover: 242 pages, with 185 illustrations - 143 are in color
Publisher: Philadelphia Museum Of Art; First Edition  published 2001
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0876331452
Dimensions: 9.6 x 1 x 12.3 inches
Weight: 4.1 pounds
Binding: Blue cloth with gilt lettered spine and illustrated dust jacket

Condition: New (unused, in original shrinkwrap)

From the Foreward: “This volume records a remarkable collaborative exhibition that assembles for the first time eighty illuminated manuscripts of great quality, drawn from collections of eleven institutions in the greater Philadelphia area. Almost every artistic centre in medieval and Renaissance Western Europe is represented in this wonderfully diverse group of images, as well as almost every major known type of early illuminated book: Psalters, Bibles, Books of Hours, a wide variety of liturgical manuscripts, and many types of literary and secular texts. The delicate miniatures in these manuscripts did not appear alone; they were surrounded by words and are therefore invaluable historical objects, not only commenting on the texts that they decorate, but also revealing the art, customs, and styles of the times. The works that are to found in this magnificent book range from the religious to the moralising to the romantic and include such treasures as a superb Book of Hours once owned by the Earl of Pembroke, an elegantly illuminated copy of Saint Augustine's City of God. With their jewel-like colours, intimate scale, and often whimsical marginalia, illuminating manuscripts provide an especially engaging glimpse into the past.”

  • Inventory# RB-993
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