Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330
MS M.700 fol. 39v

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Christ: Flight into Egypt -- Virgin Mary, pearled nimbus, veiled, rides sideways on bridled ass, and holds Christ Child, cross?-nimbed, with right hand raised and object in left hand. They follow Joseph the Carpenter, wearing hat, holding staff draped with the Child's tunic, and holding reins of the ass.
Scene against gold diapered background within initial D with ornament of foliage; spandrels decorated with diapered ornament.
Margins decorated with rectilinear foliate extensions and sprigs of foliage.
In upper margin, hybrid man, as musician playing fiddle, forming part of foliate bar on which are hybrid animal and hybrid bird.
In right margin, hybrid man with body of head holding object, and heraldic escutcheon of Oddingsell (argent, a fess gules, in the dexter chief a mullet of the second).
In lower margin, hybrid animal dog barking, and hybrid animal holding staff, both flanking heraldic escutcheon of du Bois, variant (argent, a lion rampant gules, charged on the shoulder with a mullet of the field).
In left margin, heraldic escutcheon of Vernon (argent, a fretty sable).