There are several iconographic features in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux that are worth mentioning. Portrayal of black Africans can be found at the beginning of the Passion cycle in two miniatures of the illuminated manuscript. The Passion cycle at Matins opens with the Betrayal, where Malchus, a crouching figure on the left side of the foreground, has features that ethnically differ from the rest of the figures in the image. Because by the time of Pucelle's artistic bloom, Europeans were well aware and familiar with North and East African races and appearances, “the idea of depicting blacks as servants and specifically as tormenters of Christ had become part of the visual iconography of Western art from at least the 12th century.” As the familiarity with black ethnicity heightened, so did the interest for realism, especially in the visual arts, which allowed for the depiction of characteristic features found in the specific African groups that have caught the attention of Western cultures at this point in time. The colour black is, traditionally, especially in Christianity, associated with sin and evil, which gave all the more reason and logic to depict Africans as the persecutors of Christ. “Although precedents for the depiction of Malchus as a black servant and of blacks persecuting Christ existed in Gothic art, in the early 14th century this iconography remained unusual.”