Ferial Psalter

[Ferial Psalter. Latin].
Illuminated manuscript on vellum.
Nuremberg, dated 1496. (BRMS 111)

The craftsmanship exhibited by the image of King David in this Ferial Psalter testifies to the high technical quality of manuscript illumination in fifteenth-century Nuremberg. Yet the Gothic style of the illumination is notably conservative, placing the kneeling king in a rudimentary landscape and retaining decorative motifs that had been developed several decades earlier. Evidently created for a nun in a local convent, the manuscript bears a colophon indicating that it was completed in Nuremberg on February 3, 1496.