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Source Description
This eleventh-century Gospel Book is of great importance for art historians due to the style of its miniatures, which suggest that it may have been produced in Antioch on the Orontes. The city was a major Byzantine center before its fall to the Seljuks in 1084, but very little of its artistic production survives. Unfortunately, the fragile condition of the manuscript and its binding makes full imaging impossible at this time, so only the exterior could be digitized. Although the volume contains the continuous text of the Gospels, its size is quite large, and it may have been used for public liturgical readings in church, much like a Gospel lectionary.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
28163
label
Gospel Book
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
28163
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Gospel Book
description
This eleventh-century Gospel Book is of great importance for art historians due to the style of its miniatures, which suggest that it may have been produced in Antioch on the Orontes. The city was a major Byzantine center before its fall to the Seljuks in 1084, but very little of its artistic production survives. Unfortunately, the fragile condition of the manuscript and its binding makes full imaging impossible at this time, so only the exterior could be digitized. Although the volume contains the continuous text of the Gospels, its size is quite large, and it may have been used for public liturgical readings in church, much like a Gospel lectionary.
provenance
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, 1541-42, by gift; Patriarch Damianus, Damascus, 1918 (?) [mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Paris, after 1918 (?), by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
late 11th century
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
illuminated manuscripts
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
34.3
height
26
dimensionsRaw
Overall H: 13 1/2 x W: 10 1/4 in. (34.3 x 26 cm); Folio H: 13 9/16 × W: 9 5/8 in. (34.5 × 24.5 cm)
Source extras
cul
Byzantine
med
ink and pigments on heavyweight parchment bound between squared flush-grooved wooden boards covered with blind-tooled brown goatskin and recovered with red velvet and traces of metal attachments
creator_ids
8611
collection_ids
MSS
exhibition_ids
31
358
30
2289
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
1303e3533c7e91e1