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Source Description
This Gospel Book was written in the diocese of Freising, Germany, ca. 875. Surprisingly small for a Gospel Book, it is nonetheless richly illuminated and offers an excellent example of Carolingian art and Caroline minuscule script. The expressive and emotive quality of the Evangelist portraits, characterized by quick, sketchy brushwork, recalls the style developed by the Carolingian school of Reims in northern France. The canon tables, however, derive from a different tradition, and recall Franco-Saxon imagery in their use of interlace within the columns and of acanthus springing from the top corners. The manuscript is one of a small group of codices produced at Freising at this time, among them another Gospel Book, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 6215. It is complete, consisting of 215 folios and includes readings for the liturgical year, Jerome's Plures fuisse and Novum opus letters, decorated canon tables, and Evangelist portraits.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
19057
label
Freising Gospels
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
19057
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Freising Gospels
description
This Gospel Book was written in the diocese of Freising, Germany, ca. 875. Surprisingly small for a Gospel Book, it is nonetheless richly illuminated and offers an excellent example of Carolingian art and Caroline minuscule script. The expressive and emotive quality of the Evangelist portraits, characterized by quick, sketchy brushwork, recalls the style developed by the Carolingian school of Reims in northern France. The canon tables, however, derive from a different tradition, and recall Franco-Saxon imagery in their use of interlace within the columns and of acanthus springing from the top corners. The manuscript is one of a small group of codices produced at Freising at this time, among them another Gospel Book, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 6215. It is complete, consisting of 215 folios and includes readings for the liturgical year, Jerome's Plures fuisse and Novum opus letters, decorated canon tables, and Evangelist portraits.
provenance
Freising, Germany, ca. 865-875; Germany, 19th century; Leon Gruel and Robert Engelmann, Paris, late 19th-early 20th century [mode of acquisition unknown, no.78]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, February 19, 1917 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
2nd half 9th century (Medieval)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
illuminated manuscripts
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
17.5
height
12.2
dimensionsRaw
H: 6 7/8 x W: 4 13/16 in. (17.5 x 12.2 cm)
Source extras
cul
Carolingian
style
Carolingian
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med
ink and pigments on closely cropped parchment, ranges from thin to thick, scrape marks often visible on hair side; thicker parchment on folios with decoration; covered with German or French nineteenth-century purple velvet over coarsely woven blue canvas over beech boards, with vestiges of old manuscript pastedowns (boards probably sixteenth-century)
creator_ids
7645
collection_ids
MSS
MED
exhibition_ids
316
2266
2413
2396
2365
270
30
2289
2012
96
31
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
c7058aa576202d40