
St. Blaise
ca. 1440
The Netherlands, Utrecht
MS M.917/945, pp. 264–265
Purchased on the Belle da Costa Greene Fund with the assistance of the Fellows, 1963
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Blaise is dressed in the vestments of a bishop, holding a crozier in his left hand and a wool-comb slung over his right shoulder. The long, sharp tines of this tool are the implements of his martyrdom. The textile background includes several ferocious looking beasts- an allusion to the story that he healed wild animals while a hermit in the desert. In the border, a monkey reaches out from the curling leaves to snatch a bird from the inhabited initial "O" in the text, which takes the form of a bird's nest.