Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

347. MS M.917/945, pp. 308–309

St. Cecilia

ca. 1440
The Netherlands, Utrecht
MS M.917/945, pp. 308–309

Purchased on the Belle da Costa Greene Fund with the assistance of the Fellows, 1963

The noble Cecilia, engaging in the aristocratic sport of falconry, feeds a falcon. The avian theme continues in the textile background, which has the repeated motif of a winged boy holding a white hawk, and in the margins, which contain four large feathers. These feathers are in turn decorated with paired white wings, which are lures used to entice the bird back to the falconer. Also embellishing these large feathers are gold letters that, as elsewhere in the manuscript, have been interpreted as CD for Catherina Duxissa (Catherine the Duchess).