The Morgan Bible (mostly Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Ms M. 638), also called the Morgan Picture Bible, Crusader Bible, Shah Abbas Bible or Maciejowski Bible, is a unique medieval illuminated manuscript. It is a picture book Bible consisting of 46 surviving folios. The book consists of miniature paintings of events from the Hebrew Bible, set in the scenery and costumes of thirteenth-century France, and depicted from a Christian perspective. It is not a complete Bible, as it consists largely of illustrations of stories of kings, especially King David.[1] The illustrations are now surrounded by text in three scripts and five languages: Latin, Persian, Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Hebrew.[2] The level of detail in the images and the remarkable state of preservation of the work make it particularly valuable to scholars.[1]
Forty-three folios are in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, with two folios in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (MS nouv. acq. lat. 2294). A single folio is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (MS 16).[3] Two folios are thought to be missing from the original work.
- ^ a b Weiss, Daniel H. (2010-09-16), "Morgan Library Picture Book", Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t2089313
- ^ Morgan Library, "Inscriptions"
- ^ Morgan Library, "About the Book"