The smaller initials contain various images, including kings, queens, peasants, and bishops. The margins of many pages are heavily decorated with abstract designs that constantly sprout into plant shapes, and contain many small "marginal grotesques" of no obvious religious relevance. The Psalter, (noted for its gaudy, vivid images and its coarse Pythonesque humour) abounds in images of grotesques and drolleries. These images include grotesques with faces on their bottoms, three-headed monsters with hairy noses, a dog in a bishop's costume, an ape doctor giving a false diagnosis to a bear patient, rabbits jousting and riding hounds and a giant skate terrorising a man. Christopher de Hamel of Sotheby's attributes the illumination to one of the artists of the Douai Psalter. Stella Panayotova believes that the versatility displayed in the Macclesfield Psalter's design suggests the involvement of multiple artists and that "at least two assistants decorated the borders and may have painted designs sketched by the Master". The original patron of the Psalter is unknown, as it appears that a coat of arms has been cut from the pages in various places throughout the Psalter. It is thought that the original owner could possibly have been John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, the possible patron of the Gorleston Psalter. The Psalter also contains an image of a Dominican friar, who may have been the owner's confessor and may also have been involved in the production of the psalter.