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Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th – 18th Centuries installed at the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Leaf from a Dominican Missal, Italian (Perugia), c. 1353, opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on vellum, Gift, Mrs. Otto F. Ege from Otto F. Ege Collection. 
Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Gallery installation at the Reading Public Museum

Joachinus de Gigantibus de Rotenberg (illuminator), German, active 1440s - 1490s, Pietro Ursuleo of Capua (scribe), Italian, died 1483, Leaf from a Book of Hours, Italian, 1465 – 1483, opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on parchment, Museum Purchase.  Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th – 18th Centuries installed at the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Spanish, Leaf from Choir Book, c. 1400 – 1450, ink on paper, 22 ½ x 16 inches, Museum Purchase, 1923.27.3.1, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th – 18th Centuries installed at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida.

Spanish, Bifolio from a Choir Book, 1400 – 1450, ink on vellum, 30 ¾ x 44 ½ inches, Museum Purchase, 1923.28.3.2, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th – 18th Centuries installed at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida.

Persian, Leaf from a Shahnameh (Book of Kings) depicting the story “Rustam Slays the White Div”, 16th – 17th century, opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper, 16 x 10 ¼ inches, Museum Purchase, 1932.377.1, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts 13th – 18th Centuries installed at The Mitchell Gallery at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland.

Flemish, Book of Hours, 1480 – 1490, ink on parchment, Gift, Mrs. Otto F. Ege from the Otto F. Ege Collection, 1956.32.30.18, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

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Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts

Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts explores the golden age of handmade books, some of which employed elaborate gold leaf decoration and intricate ornament. The show includes examples from medieval European Bibles, prayer books, psalters, books of hours, choir books, missals, breviaries, and lectionaries. Examples of the materials—gold leaf, parchment, vellum, and minerals which were ground into pigments—used by artists to create these extraordinary pages are also featured in the exhibit.

Most of the works date from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries and are ink on parchment (prepared animal skin). French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, English, Armenian, and German examples will be included in addition to non-Western pages, including seventeenth- and eighteenth-century leaves from the Koran and Shahnameh (the Persian illustrated Book of Kings), as well as examples of Hebrew texts. Nearly all of the manuscript pages entered the collection of the Reading Public Museum through Otto Ege, a well-known bookseller and manuscript specialist, who was born in Reading in 1888. He was a longtime resident of Cleveland, where he served as professor of art history and dean of the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Contents: 37 sheets (including four bifolios) in 31 frames; 1 bound manuscript; 1 scroll; 1 framed original Otto Ege promotional flyer; and manuscript-making materials display

Size: Approximately 130 linear feet, plus 2-3 vitrines (not provided)

Exhibition fee includes: approximate 12 week loan period; digital versions of labels, text panels, and educational booklet; and a marketing packet including several high-resolution images, captions, and a sample press release.

Exhibition Tour:

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD
Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
Mitchell Gallery, St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD
Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL
Payne Gallery, Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA
The Citadelle Art Museum, Canadian, TX
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA

 

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For more information on traveling exhibits please contact Ashley Houston at
610.371.5850 x232 or Ashley.houston@readingpublicmuseum.org.

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