Thursday, November 15, 2012

Paris Hours

Parchment leaves from a 15th century Book of Hours (use of Paris), encompassing: "[f]ifteen large miniatures, usually above 3 lines of text in arched compartments, surrounded by full borders of blue and gold acanthus, flowers, green pears, strawberries, and a particularly large number of grotesques, frequently obscene." [Ed. I think the name, 'drolleries', is probably closer to the mark]
"For three hundred years, from c. 1250 to c. 1550, the Book of Hours was the bestseller of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The core of the Book of Hours is the Office of the Virgin Mary, with its set of prayers to be recited at home eight different times, or hours, of the day, just as monks chanted the office during the eight monastic hours. Books of Hours still exist on the market in greater number than any other type of medieval manuscript.

Books of Hours are remarkably varied. Everyday versions were sometimes written on paper with modest ornamentation. Deluxe versions were nearly always copied on fine parchment and richly illuminated with precious gold leaf and lapis lazuli by the best artists of the day. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, doctors, lawyers, merchants, housewives, and even children, who learned to read from them, owned Books of Hours. Wealthy women often received illuminated Books of Hours as dowry presents. Recording in them milestones of family history, they passed them down from generation to generation as heirlooms."
[The Book of Hours website of Les Enluminures]



God the Father with symbols of the four Evangelists in the corners 13v
God the Father with symbols of the four Evangelists in the corners



Book of Hours painted miniature of Annunciation bible scene
Annunciation



Visitation; in the lower margin, soldier with arms of Malet de Graville f62
Visitation; in the lower margin, soldier with arms of Malet de Graville



15th c. illuminated manuscript biblical miniature
Betrayal in the garden



religious miniature from Christian Evangelist manuscript
Pentecost



manuscript miniature of Jesus' birth biblical episode
Nativity



painted biblical manuscript miniature: the Annunciation
Annunciation to the shepherds



stable scene from New Testament : manuscript painting
Adoration of the Magi



bible scene painted in book of hours
Flight into Egypt



manuscript scene from devotional to the Virgin Mary
Assumption of the Virgin



painted manuscript scene of Goliath from Old Testament
David killing Goliath



illuminated miniature with foliated border drolleries
Job on the dunghill*




Gnadenstuhl f170
Gnadenstuhl
(Gnadenstuhl translates from the German Lutheran bible as The Mercy Seat: Christian iconography representing the Holy Trinity: God the Father holds Jesus on the cross, while the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit hovers over it)



The elegant illuminated manuscript featured here is thought to have been produced in France in ~1480 for a member of the family of Malet de Graville [W]. Only the first image up top has been cropped back (slightly) from the full page display; the images are otherwise unaltered.


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