This is a page from a Gradual. The Gradual contained the musical parts of the Missal, the book containing the services of the Mass. The initial A is historiated (that is, with a figurative picture, istoire being the term for a story). It shows the Annunciation, in which the Angel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary to announce the birth of Jesus Christ. In the outer margin an angel holds a scroll bearing an inscription, 'gift of Katerina of Gouda and Maria Ursi, nuns'. Around the borders of the page are birds, a butterfly and grotesque figures.

From the last decades of the 13th century, it was common for the ornament that framed the text to be inhabited by regiments of grotesque figures. These were half-man and half-beast. They were depicted alongside animals and birds that were realistically represented. Interspersed among the birds and animals were dragons' bodies and grotesque faces. Occasionally, there is a link between the grotesques and the text, but often there seems little more than incongruous romping. This choirbook was made for a community of Dominican nuns. Female grotesques playing musical instruments are shown under the praying figures of the nuns.