Whimsical Marginalia in a 17th-Century Armenian Manuscript: Reassessing Child Authorship Through Artistic Tradition
The Wellcome Collection—a London-based museum and library that explores health and human experience through its holdings of rare books and artworks—recently featured marginal drawings from MS Armenian 15, a 17th-century Armenian book of sermons, tentatively attributing them to children. This interpretation cites their ostensibly naïve features: exaggerated proportions, irregular halos, and schematic figures (“tube-shaped” bodies, “stick-fingers,” and “muddled-up faces”). While child interaction with manuscripts is historically attested, this attribution warrants scrutiny against Armenian artistic traditions, workshop practices, and the manuscript’s 17th-century context—an era of experimentation in Armenian illumination.
The Armenia Minor and Vaspurakan schools employed deliberate distortion, grotesquerie, and irony in biblical imagery. The drawings’ exaggerated forms and abstract marginal motifs likely represent sophisticated visual rhetoric rather than technical deficiencies. These elements may reflect theological humor, spiritual transcendence, or vernacular adaptations of pre-Christian visual language—all hallmarks of Armenian illumination. The “weird horse” and “scribbled fill” could thus signify parody or commentary, not childlike execution. Moreover, the 17th century witnessed stylistic innovations in Armenian art; these marginalia might embody transitional experiments toward modernity rather than juvenile doodles.
The execution’s variability (e.g., inconsistent halos) better aligns with workshop practices than child development. Plausible alternatives include: unfinished sketches by the primary artist; later additions by owners; or apprentice work post-master’s death. Codicological evidence confirms that less-skilled adult artists commonly contributed marginalia. The presumption that “primitive” styles indicate child hands overlooks these documented practices and the intentionally grotesque traditions pervasive in Armenian art.
While children may have interacted with manuscripts, the attribution to them remains tenuous without provenance evidence. The drawings’ stylistic and contextual features more strongly suggest adult artistry, whether intentional, experimental, or unrefined. This reassessment underscores the need for a nuanced analysis of marginalia, recognizing Armenian art’s distinctive visual vocabulary and the complex realities of manuscript production.
