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 and a fool striding (Psalm 52)
David prays to God in the upper part of the initial D. Below, a half-naked fool wields a club and eats a cake. A standard image for Psalm 52 in 13th-century French Psalters and Bibles, the fool illustrates the Psalm’s opening verse, written in gold on the right and continuing beneath the image, Dixit insipiens in corde suo non est deus (‘The fool said in his heart: there is no God’). The initial was painted by Hand B.