Thielmann Kerver
German, flourished 1497-1524
The Tree of Jesse, from a book of hours
INV-2223
Thielmann Kerver
German, flourished 1497-15241505/10
The Tree of Jesse, from a book of hours
Thielmann Kerver German, flourished 1497-1524 →woodcutprint
Date
1505/10
Medium
Metalcut and letterpress, with hand-coloring, on parchment
Dimensions
15 × 9.1 cm (5 15/16 × 3 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Print Sales Miscellaneous Fund and Henry J. Willing Fund
This leaf comes from a prayer book published in Paris in the early 1500s. Thielmann Kerver often incorporated elements from the illuminated manuscript tradition. Here, for example, he combined expensive vellum, lavish illustrations, and hand-colored initials with the newer technology of printing. While the words were printed with moveable type, the central images and composite borders were printed from separate carved blocks, or matrices, that could be arranged in different groupings and reused for future editions.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
