Speculum morale totius Sacre Scripture

This illustration seems to demonstrate the facetious side of marginalia. There are numerous pen markings leading up to a sketch of a face. This face fits more into the caricature genre than other examples in this exhibit.While this illustration may be whimsical or facetious, it can also be read as macabre or unpleasant. The straight-across mouth and clown cheeks can be unsettling, and it looks as if the artist drew the nose first. This illustration may represent someone specific, as there are several prominent features: low eyebrows, a thin mouth, a mole on the nose. The other illustrations drawn throughout this text in a similar hand indicate that this may have been a way to test out the pen on a back page. They could, however, simply represent ruminations after finishing the text or doodling for fun. The discrepancy between the lightheartedness of this face and the text’s topic on morality and scripture indicates that the artist was not thinking about the text when drawing this face. 

It is possible that the artist drew some inspiration for these marginalia from the text, however. The angels on the edge of the woodcut on this page have several visual similarities with the drawing in terms of the direction they face and the position of the nose on the face, and they could have been a source of inspiration. Moreover, there is a common variable in the marginalia and the Bible’s marginal illustration: the two faces drawn both have dots beneath the cheek.