The Art of Illumination

Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry, 1405–1408/9. Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416). French; Made in Paris. Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum; 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.8 x 16.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters Collection, 1954 (54.1.1).

Saint Catherine Cycle
Angels Destroy the Wheels of Knives, Folio 18v

The wheels designed to torture and kill Catherine are destroyed by angels wielding claw hammers, and the blades of the wheels kill three pagans instead. The innovative foreshortening of the dead figure at right is highly unusual in the period, but it is a pose repeated elsewhere in the manuscript.