3-042-692 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Lord Enthroned with Angels: Two Seraphim: Two Kneeling Angels in Prayer: A Man Kneeling: The Flagellation; Ruskin Hours, about 1300. Additional Info: Distinguishing it from most other books of hours, the Ruskin Hours has a fully illuminated Litany, a series of invocations to favored saints. On this first page of the litany, a small, decorated initial highlights the opening prayer, Kyrie eleyson (Lord, have mercy), the one prayer in the Latin liturgy still said today in Greek. To the right, as on the succeeding pages of this manuscript's litany, a vertical panel divided into five compartments contains small Miniature on backgrounds of burnished gold. At the top, Jesus sits enthroned between the angels who daily praise him in heaven. Seraphim and angels occupy the following two compartments. Below, a knight, perhaps the owner of the manuscript, kneels before the Lord. On the bottom the artist depicted the Flagellation, an episode from Jesus' Passion.