Leaf from a Book of Hours: Office of the Dead: Two Devils (verso)

Why it matters

As a time-saving device, illuminators in the 1450s and later would often paint identical borders on both sides of a leaf. The motifs would be drawn on one side and then traced on the other by holding the leaf against a window. Both sides of this leaf are therefore mirror images, containing elaborate floral borders, gold-leaf ivy vines, sprays of flowers or fruit, and a grotesque, in this case a bird with the head of a man. Also included is a roundel featuring two devils. This leaf is from a dismantled manuscript that included numerous painted roundels relating to the lives of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the more obscure Saint Alexis.