{{Short description|13th-century German artist}} [[File:German - Claricia Psalter - Walters W26 - Obverse Detail.jpg|thumb|from a psalter on parchment, figure of a woman swinging diagonally over the page forms the tail of the letter Q that begins Psalm 51 (in the counting of the Vulgata, today: Psalm 52) the name, Claricia, is inscribed above her head, Walters Art Museum]] '''Claricia''' or '''Clarica''' was a 13th-century German illuminator. She is noted for including a self-portrait in a South German psalter of c. 1200, now in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. In the self-portrait, she depicts herself as swinging from the tail of a letter Q.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Artists of the Middle Ages|last=Ross|first=Leslie|date=2003|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-31903-7|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/artistsofmiddlea00ross/page/141 141]|url=https://archive.org/details/artistsofmiddlea00ross/page/141}}</ref> Additionally, she inscribed her name over her head.

Feminist studies in the field of literature and medieval art such as Whitney Chadwick and Dorothy Miner uncovered Claricia's work in one of her manuscripts.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture|last=Hourihane|first=Colum|date=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-539536-5|location=Oxford|pages=647}}</ref> "Claricia’s hand is just one of several in this manuscript, leading Dorothy Miner to conclude on the basis of her dress – uncovered head, braided hair, and a close-fitting tunic under a long-waisted dress with long tapering points hanging from the sleeves – that she was probably a lay student at the convent."<ref>Whitney Chadwick: "Woman, Art, and Society", p. 53</ref>

There is controversy regarding Claricia's occupation. Scholars such as Miner believe that Claricia was a lay woman – possibly a high-born lady – active in a convent scriptorium in Augsburg.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reassessing the Roles of Women as 'Makers' of Medieval Art and Architecture (2 Vol. Set)|last=Martin|first=Therese|date=2012|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-18555-5|pages=400}}</ref> Some rejected that she was employed as a convent assistant, noting that the language of the psalm was derogatory.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence|last=Smith|first=Lesley|last2=Taylor|first2=Jane|date=1997|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-8069-1|pages=117}}</ref>

==See also== * List of German women artists * Guda (nun)

==References== {{reflist}} {{commons category}}

==External links== * [http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/middle-ages-women-artists.htm Middle Ages Women Artists]

{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Claricia}} Category:German manuscript illuminators Category:13th-century German artists Category:13th-century German women Category:Romanesque artists Category:German women painters Category:13th-century women artists Category:Medieval German women artists

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