Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Horae of King René.

Horae of King René.Fig. [39] shows a page from a Book of Hours (Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 10, 532) which was illuminated for King René II. of Lorraine (1473 to 1508). The figure of the Virgin shows the influence of Italian art, which about this time, 1490, was largely modifying and adding grace to the paintings of Flanders.

The border, with lupines or vetch-plant realistically painted on a gold ground, is a good typical specimen of the style.

Horae of Anne of Brittany.

Horae of Anne of Brittany.The famous Prayer-book of Anne of Brittany, painted about 1500, after her second marriage to Louis XII., is a work of the same magnificent style, with an immense variety of the most exquisitely painted fruits and flowers treated with the most minute realism. It is now in the Paris library[^[167]].

Fig. [40] gives a page from a magnificent Book of Hours in the Imperial Library of Vienna (no. 1857); the miniatures in which are of the finest Teutonic type, in some cases suggesting the school of Van der Weyden, and in others that of Hans Memlinc. The conventional scroll-work of foliage with long serrated leaves in the border is very characteristic of the German and Dutch manuscripts of the fifteenth century.

Fig. 39. A page from the Book of Hours of King René, painted about 1480.

Fig. 40. A page from a Book of Hours at Vienna, of the finest Flemish style.