Size:
Column picture, painted on vellum.
Height: 10 lines.
Material and colors:
Vellum
Red, gray, green, brown, yellow, blue, white, gold leaf
Initials:
Foliate initial "B" extends from the bottom of the left side of the frame.
Height: 3 lines.
Initial is framed with one red bar on the right decorated with white ink-penned design.
Inside the initial is an "s" shaped foliate design, including blue and red leaves.
Gold foliate with white detail extends from the top and bottom of the left side of the initial.
Frame:
Gilded border with four red bars decorated with white ink-penned design.
The top and left bars are significantly wider and more detailed than the right and bottom bars.
Gilded foliate surrounds three sides of the frame: top, left and right.
Background:
Diaper pattern background. Square grid. Alternating blue squares with red ink detail and blue squares with white ink detail.
Star pattern alternating light blue and red "x" shaped diaper pattern with a white dot in the center of each "x" on a dark blue background.
Placement of miniature:
Placement of miniature after textual description matches other manuscripts depicting the same scene (BMC, Ms. 207,ÖNB, Codex 2592, BNF, Ms. Fr. 380).
Place of production of the miniature:
Paris, France. (?)
Date of production of the miniature:
Mid-14th century.
Similarities with other images from the corpus:
Lady Reason matches gestures depicted in BNF, Ms. Fr. 12595, PML, Ms. M. 324, ÖNB, Codex 2592, BMC, Ms. 207, BSG 1126
Secondary sources:
Fleming, John V. The Roman de la Rose: a Study in Allegory and Iconography. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969.
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Lady Reason typically thought of as a queen, represented with a crown and standing by or descending from her tower, a symbol of her exalted station and a reminder that she descends to aid man. Sometimes wears the scarf of 14thcentury Gothic Virgins (Fleming 113).
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Reason shares the iconographical attributes of Lady Philosophy, kinship with Divine Sapience, or the Second Person of the Trinity in both Guillaume and Jean (Flemming 114).
Detailed manuscript information (based on Helen M. Gardens and Gardening in The Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 1927, 31:3):
