Visible Past: Urban Space in Flemish Book of Hours of Isabella the Catholic

In this article, images of urban space in the Flemish illuminated books of hours of the 15th century are discussed. The main source is the miniatures of lavishly illuminated Flemish Book of Hours of Isabella the Catholic (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, the United States). With two special tables author highlights, typologizes, and analyzes the major markers of medieval and renaissance urban space (such as stone bridges, city walls, cathedrals, multi-story houses, etc.) as well as the social structure of miniatures, representing urbanscapes in Flemish Book of Hours of Isabella the Catholic.

Clearing the Course: Folio 348 of the Nepalese Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra in the Cleveland Museum of Art

The final 15 folios of the Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscript of the Sanskrit Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra of c. 1100 have more paintings per page, larger picture planes, and different types of scenes than are found on the leaves surviving from the first 340 folios. One example is Folio 348 in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which has been painted with scenes of a bodhisattva tossing a blue-skinned heretic, an unusual image of a monk or upāsika wearing blue robes, and a Vajrācārya priest setting a Hindu rishi ablaze. From the point of view of the Mahāyāna Buddhist makers of this manuscript, these figures may personify the wrong views that derail pilgrims on the bodhisattva path to enlightenment. The dramatic shift in imagery appears to reflect the transition from the end of the inspirational pilgrimage of Sudhana to the popular, protective dhāraṇī verses of the Bhadracarī that form the finale to the text. The scenes of destruction and elimination of heretical figures correspond with sentiments in the Bhadracarī, indicating that the artists understood the structure and content of the text.

‘An indefatigable intermediary’

O n 4 June 1925, Harold Woodbury Parsons was appointed European Representative to the Cleveland Museum of Art; for the remainder of the decade he distinguished himself in scouting for and acquiring masterworks of European art for the essentially brand new institution. His long-time contacts in Rome, to begin with, led him to a famous Byzantine ivory (formerly in the collection of Count Grigorij Stroganoff). This he bought for the museum in November 1925, winning enthusiastic praise from Paul J. Sachs, a key figure in American museological circles. Similarly, he acquired soon afterwards El Greco’s Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen, despite intense competition. Parsons was ideally placed in the sale of Filippino Lippi’s Holy Family tondo as a sometime agent for the antiquities collector Edward Perry Warren (recently deceased). Parsons’s correspondence and unpublished notices in the Duveen Brothers records document the off-again, on-again dealing for what is now one of the pre-eminent Italian Renaissance paintings in America, acquired in August 1929.

‘An indefatigable intermediary’

At a time when museum curatorship in America was in its infancy, Harold Woodbury Parsons (1882–1967) scouted and negotiated for outstanding works of art for the cash-rich Cleveland Museum of Art, which opened to the public in 1916. As its European representative (1925–41), he acquired such masterworks as the Stroganoff Ivory, El Greco’s Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen, and the Warren tondo by Filippino Lippi, all during the late 1920s. During a lifetime’s work in the art market, in which he worked for private collectors and other museums, this was his most important achievement. What he acquired for the Cleveland Museum is vividly recounted in the art agent’s correspondence, until now, almost entirely unpublished. After moving to Rome in 1910, Parsons first served as ‘an indefatigable intermediary’ in the world market for antiquities. Later, with the blessing of Edward Waldo Forbes and Paul J. Sachs – director and assistant director, respectively, of Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum – and with a host of European contacts, he was able to ‘gun for’ art for an ever expanding number of clients.

About the Cover

About the Cover The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834, 1835 Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775-1851) oil on canvas, Framed: 123.5 x 153.5 x 12 cm (48 9/16 x 60 3/8 x 4 11/16 in.); Unframed: 92 x 123.2 cm (36 3/16 x 48 1/2 in.). Bequest of John L. Severance 1942.647 Image Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art On the night of October 16, 1834, fire consumed the Houses of Parliament in London. Londoners gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to fire-fighting equipment on land; likewise, it hampered steamers towing fire-fighting equipment up the river. Although the tides eventually shifted, the effort was futile, as the fire burned uncontrollably for hours. Turner records this as the steamers in the lower-right corner head toward the flames.Although Turner based the painting on an actual event, he used the disaster as the starting point to express man’s helplessness when confronted with the destructive powers of nature, here dissolved in brilliant swaths of color and variable atmospheric effects that border on abstraction.