Hand B
Artists
Hand B worked on the Psalter section of the manuscript, painting the eight historiated initials for Psalms 1, 26, 38, 52, 68, 80, 97 and 109 (quires 2-12). His figures are slender and elongated. His treatment of drapery is the least advanced in the manuscript, still relying on linear patterns to indicate folds, with minimal use of colour modelling for shades and highlights.
David praying with the Father and the Son (Psalm 109)
David prays to God in the upper part of the initial D. Below, the first two Persons of the Trinity are seated on a bench: the Father, blessing and holding the orb of the world on the right, and the Son, holding a book on the left (the Father’s right). This standard image for Psalm 109 in 13th-century French Psalters and Bibles illustrates the opening verse of the Psalm, written in gold on the right and continuing beneath the image, Dixit dominus domino meo sede a dextris meis (‘The Lord said to my Lord: sit thou at my right hand’). The initial was painted by Hand B.