The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, a Fifteenth Century Dutch manuscript that is among the most beautiful and sophisticated illuminated works ever created, is the subject of a major exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum from January 22 through May 2. Titled “Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” the show includes nearly 100 individual pages from the lavishly painted manuscript, which has been disbound for this special occasion.
The title of the exhibition derives from the dramatic juxtaposition of numerous demonic creatures “lurking” within the pages of a book that is otherwise filled with devotional prayers. Catherine, an important duchess involved in an epic dynastic political battle for much of her life, hoped to use prayer to avoid eternal damnation to the realm of the demons so vividly portrayed. The exhibition is supplemented with illuminated works by both predecessors and contemporaries of the book’s anonymous artist, known to art historians as “the Master of Catherine of Cleves.”
Around 1440, Catherine, Duchess of Guelders and Countess of Zutphen, commissioned an illustrated book with devotions that she could pray throughout the day. Textually rich, in addition to the traditional Hours of the Virgin and Office of the Dead, it contains unusual prayers for the Hours of every day of the week, complemented with an appropriate votive Mass. The book also features an unusually rich suite of 57 Suffrages, or petitions to individual saints.
The manuscript is equally rich visually: it contains 157 (originally 168) miniatures. They reveal colorful landscapes and detailed domestic interiors. For example, in the miniature of the Holy Family at Work, Joseph planes a board and the Virgin Mary weaves while the infant Jesus takes his first steps in a walker. Throughout the miniatures are meticulously depicted buildings, textiles, furniture, jewelry and even fish †painted over silver foil.
Many miniatures comprise long, elaborate cycles of iconographic and theological complexity. One such cycle includes eight miniatures about the legend of the True Cross, including rare illustrations of Adam on His Deathbed Dispatching his Son Seth to Paradise, Seth Planting a Branch from the Tree of Mercy in the Mouth of the Dead Adam and, in the concluding scene, Miracles at the Pool of Bethesda.
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is also famous for its innovative borders, no two of which are alike. Some depict such everyday activities as milking cows, churning butter and baking bread. Still others are filled with butterflies, mussels, coins, fishnets, bird traps, flowers, vegetables, fruits and even pretzels.
Mounted in frames or shown in cases, the leaves are exhibited in their original sequence when the manuscript, bound in one volume, rested in Catherine’s hands. (The manuscript was separated into two volumes in the Nineteenth Century by a bookseller who was able to make each volume look complete by cleverly mixing up the leaves.)
The exhibition begins with a dozen images from the heart of the book †the Hours of the Virgin. The famous portrait of Catherine praying to the Virgin Mary, surrounded by the heraldry of eight of her ancestors, is on display. The next section, the Hours of the Cross, is illustrated by a series of images of Christ’s Passion. Miniatures from the Weekday Hours follow, including two more portraits of Catherine. In one, she is distributing alms; in the other, she petitions the crucified Christ to seek her salvation from God the Father.
The exhibition also features illustrations for the Penitential Psalms and the Office of the Dead. One of the most striking miniatures is a representation of Hell †a proto-Boschian vision of eternal torture with devils casting the damned into a furnacelike prison, the entrance of which is a roaring beast’s gaping maw fanged with three sets of teeth. The final suite of miniatures includes 20 Suffrages.
The Morgan Library & Museum is at 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street. For information, www.themorgan.org or 212-685-0008.
