This leaf is from a large Bible that was made in several volumes. Its format shows that it was designed to be read on a lectern. It would have been made for a religious community rather than for a scholar. The illumination is of a high quality and was probably the work of itinerant illuminators whose work can be found in manuscripts produced in other centres. Where exactly the Glazier-Rylands Bible was made has been disputed. Cambrai has been proposed, as well as Tournai and the county of Hainaut in France. But it is difficult to locate a notional workshop in a specific area, as travelling artists were brought together for specific commissions in different places. At least three illuminators who worked on the Bible moved on to Liège (Southern Netherlands) to contribute to a magnificent Psalter that is considered to have introduced an up-to-date High Gothic style from France to that area. Pages from this Bible are now held in several locations, including the Glazier Collection in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and the John Rylands University Library in Manchester. The leaves from the Bible now in the V&A were acquired from the dealer and scholar W.H. James Weale in 1883.

Professionally-made books used decorative initials to signal the major divisions of text by making the heading memorable. There was usually a hierarchy of initials within any book to designate sections, chapters, paragraphs and other breaks. The initials were added either by the scribe or, increasingly in the later Middle Ages, by a specialist, in spaces left blank by the scribe. The important initials might be historiated (ie with a figurative picture, 'istoire' being the term for a story) or decorated, while the lesser initials were made up of coloured letters on coloured or gold grounds, often with flourishing in ink of a contrasting colour. The initial E on this page shows King David enthroned. To his right are three young men leading Abishag, an Old Testament maiden, into his presence, the whole under a Gothic canopy. On the side of the page is a marginal bar with ivy leaves, dragons, dogs, a jay and a wood-pecker.