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Author portrait

A miniature or historiated initial depicting the author of a text.

A miniature or historiated initial depicting the author of a text. Author portraits were known in antiquity and appear in manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages in a variety of texts.

  • German:
    Autorenbild
  • Portuguese:
    auto-retrato

Michelle Brown, Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the British Library, c1994).